botia's going wild

[Mark Janssen]

i have 8 botia kubotai, 8 botia lohachata (i suspect 3 of them being rostrata) and 3 botia morletti's.

i didn't go for de everetti barb (since emme told me they were prone to velvet but the only had 5 anyways), but for the odessa bard. i knwo they are sub-tropical but 24 degrees C. must be able.

I only bought 15 since i wanted to make sure they were doing fine and if not i could house them in my grandfathers tank or my spare tank.

but my botia's won't let them stay in a school for long? when they do they race right throug it. not harming the fish by the way.

and were they more sleeping during the day now they are going bananas all day long. after adding the barbs

i do like the barbs whenever i touch of stand in front of the tank they will all come to that point (which is also anoying since a close up of a botia is damn impossible thanks to these camera hungry fish) and are even more bold since they nip at me all the time when i'm busy in the tank.

But nonetheless is they survive 2 weeks all add more of them making a group of 30 fish.

but my questions again:

why are my botia's going bananas since adding the barbs?
a red mouth and barbels with an lohachate means it's a male?

[Martin Thoene]

It's the Dither-fish effect Mark. The large number of active fish is a trigger that tells the Botia that all is well and there are no predators about. Therefore it's safe to come out and play.
Their activity with the barbs is just part of their natural playfulness.

Odessa barbs are very beautiful and a good schooling fish. Certainly if you get a lot more they'll make an impressive display and only increase the Botia's confidence levels. Good quality, mature male Odessas are really stunning fish.

Martin.

[AwesomeCoolstein]

Do barbs deal with high current tanks well?


because I have guppies in mine now and I can tell you, they arn't

[Martin Thoene]

Many species of barbs live in quite fast-flowing rivers, so they usually appreciate some current.

Definitely your guppies will not appreciate it. Guppies inhabit streams in nature, though not generally fast-flowing ones, but they're not the domesticated varieties with big tails. This makes them unsuitable for aquaria with lots of current.

Martin.

[AwesomeCoolstein]

Most of them are in guppy breeders, I haven't come up with a good top fish for the tank yet so I was using it for guppy breeding.

[mikev]

Odessa's are a very nice choice.

I've been experimenting with them a bit a year ago and noticed that the color was better and the fish was more active at a slightly lower temperature, around 70F-72F (at that time their tank did not have loaches, so I could play with settings).

why are my botia's going bananas since adding the barbs?

It appears that Botia's may go bananas on any change to the tank.

a red mouth and barbels with an lohachate means it's a male?

I really don't think so, my fat ones, who are most certainly females, seem to have more red. Otoh, my most-likely-male yoyo (not skinny, but no extra belly) has almost no red at all.
The only sexing hint I see is the body shape, and this works only at 3"+ size.

hth

[Mark Janssen]

thanks for the reply's

the males are butiful indeed... only (i got 5 more all males) the 20 fish school in 2 schools now very strange...

but still can't get any macro's since they all get in front of the freaking lens...

the barbs are certainly active and do seam to trigger the loaches... at night the barbs hide in the lare javaverns and the botia's are less active than usual tonight...

about the redness around the mouths i thought i read this somewhere so thats why i asked...

kubotai and lohachata don't like each other very much unfortunatly and quarrel about the smallest fart... i'm going hunting for more wood for in the tank and more rocks hopefully they will settle down...

the lohachate are great diggers by the way and dig far more often than the kubotai.

i cant get a good pictute due to the barbs but i'm almost certain that 3 of the lohachate are rostrata.

can i leave them on there own? since i have 19 loaches in my 2 meter thank and it's a full house from where i'm watching... plus i never seen them in shops here and these were wrongly identifyd by the supplier of the shop... (as lohachata)