Loaches Online Forum

They have really started to colour up of late and and have really taken a liking to frozen squid, mussel and cockle

The king and queen of Botia's!!

Very nice!
What size are these fish?
I don't blame them...I like squid too.

They are all between 4 1/2" & 5"

That's encouraging that they are getting more colorful at that size rather than getting more silvery as histis and rostrata often do.

Beautiful fish, wish I could get some but I heard they are rather pricey....we shall see.

Mike

lovely condition mark,
i'm still not impressed with them and we could have got them for half the price of the normal prices being charged, i don't think andy's that keen either.

mick

They had a few in at BAS in Bolton but they don't seem to have gone that well. I was in there this afternoon and there are still three left - been in there for a couple of months now I would guess.

Very nice. Nice healthy looking fish

Yep, They are still awesome! Good on you MD.

Ha ha , now now Micky , no to be honest i like em BUT i do like to keep decent size groups , and as far as i am concerned , i simply couldnt justify the cost ! maybe one day ?
I must say though i am impressed with your pics Mark , i watched that exellent prgram on bbc2 about the woman who was studying Giant Otters , and she could tell them all apart by the different markings on their chests, just looking at your pics Merk ,and the dorsal fin on every one of your Emperors has a different pattern !
One thing that stands out so far with this fish is the slenderness of them !
How are you finding their temprement ?

The males do stay very slender but as you can see from the first and last photo's the females do get chunkier than the males, I have 6 now and I am hoping to add a couple more females.

They are very peaceful towards other fish but like all loaches can get a bit feisty towards their own species and surprisingly towards the histrionicas, saying that though its nothing more than hand bags at dawn really

I have been impressed by the way they are very peaceful towards the clowns and regularly swim with the clowns, I do think that these are amazing fish as they seem to have a stronger social bond than clowns and regularly 5 will swim together to find the 6th fish and when they do meet up there is lots of whisker touching etc, its great to watch.

Hi Mad Duff,

I never had a chance to see one live. They don´t come to Brazil (at least I have never seen or heard about them here). They look very similar to the histrionica except for the color. Am I right?

Marcos Mataratzis wrote:Hi Mad Duff,

I never had a chance to see one live. They don´t come to Brazil (at least I have never seen or heard about them here). They look very similar to the histrionica except for the color. Am I right?

They are very similar to the histrionicas but there are subtle differences the main one been like you say the colour.

Thanks for the info Mark , when it comes to Botia's i dont take much talking round ha ha , i should imagine the interaction with the Histrionica's could be due to the similarities ?