Loaches Online Forum

This time it was positively gross. I noticed one of my black ruby barbs swimming around with something stuck to the side. At clsoer inspection it was the remnants of an eye!! I'll try to get some pictures later tonight. Definitely one of the less endearing habits of an otherwise wonderful fish (B. striata.

oh man, I was thinking about getting these guys... maybe not..

Here are some photos of the damage:



That is the male that lost his eye quite some time ago when he was small. He is now around 1.5 inches or so.

And here is the rather gruesome sight of the female that lost her right eye today:



I'm not sure if I just have one individual that is doing this, or if it is truly a species trait. Whatever it is, it's not particularly nice!

Interesting, that could explain how two of my platies lost an eye!!!

Not nice!!!

That must not be a very nice thing to find!!

It looks like the male in the first picture has healed over nicely. Almost remind me of the Blind Cave Tetras I have seen. Is he able to swim and eat the same as the other fish?

The second fish, the female.., will you let the eye and skin fall off, or would you take her out and trim it off before someone decides to try to have a nibble?

I have heard some loaches can be vicious, so in my study of loaches I have centred on the peaceful ones to have in my tanks until I get more experienced. I don't think I'd be quite prepared to deal with something like that. It seems to me that a lot of the botias with elongate noses are the more aggressive ones.

I sincerely hope you don't have to see that again!!

soul-hugger

I have a school of hatchets each missing an eye...creepy.
One of my female dwarf rainbows also was missing an eye (RIP).
I think it is one striata.
I bought a bunch of striata from one tank at the lfs. The eye eating loach was left left in a tank for about six months at a lfs.
It didn't grow at all at the lfs (and is still tiny to this day...seemingly not growing at all).
this lfs was famous for not feeding the fish in the tanks.
so this loach prob ate eyes of other fish to survive.
I witnessed it taking an eye once so I know it has this bad habit.

newshound wrote:I have a school of hatchets each missing an eye...creepy.
One of my female dwarf rainbows also was missing an eye (RIP).
I think it is one striata.
I bought a bunch of striata from one tank at the lfs. The eye eating loach was left left in a tank for about six months at a lfs.
It didn't grow at all at the lfs (and is still tiny to this day...seemingly not growing at all).
this lfs was famous for not feeding the fish in the tanks.
so this loach prob ate eyes of other fish to survive.
I witnessed it taking an eye once so I know it has this bad habit.

Stunted, hungry, and lonely. Sounds great!

Interesting fish story. Interesting fish behavior. Funny the stuff that happens at the old LFS.

Sometimes the LFS guys make me wonder. I was buying a couple Spotted Pictus Catfish the other day and one of them got one of his barbs caught in the net. Before I could even blink the LFS guy grabbed his barb and ripped it free of the net. I was stunned. Hell, I would have bought the net if he didn't want to cut him loose. Grumble grumble.

soul-hugger wrote:That must not be a very nice thing to find!!

It looks like the male in the first picture has healed over nicely. Almost remind me of the Blind Cave Tetras I have seen. Is he able to swim and eat the same as the other fish?

The second fish, the female.., will you let the eye and skin fall off, or would you take her out and trim it off before someone decides to try to have a nibble?

Well, it doesn't endear the striatas to the rest of my family, that's for sure!

Both fish behave fairly normally and seem to be able to catch food etc. The male has been swimming at a slight angle, as if looking at the bottom with his only eye.

Zebra loaches are not supposed to be aggressive, but I would characterize them as 'nippy'. They definitely seem dominant over the kubotai.

I have ten that I bought all at once. So I can't blame it on a starved misfit. This was the third instance in close to a year and a half. The strange thing is that they don't necessarily target the easy-to-catch fish - like newshound's account of hatchet fish seems like an odd target for a largely bottom-dwelling loach.

Anyway, I don't want to see it again. I worry that it'll be a kubotai or clown loach one of these days. Then I'll have to make some decisions.....

It's good that the fish can live normally with just one eye. However it is hard not to worry it won't happen again! One would like to think most fish would be pretty good at avoiding such an attack, but I guess you never know. Three fish in a year and a half isn't a lot, but it's enough to give cause for concern. Strange thing is, you're probably not likely to catch the culprit in the act.

There are definitely those fish that are known to be aggressive, but then there are also those freak cases where a fish does not behave normally for its kind. With my limited experience, I don't have any advice to give as far as figuring out why it happened, or keeping it from happening again, other than the obvious extreme of separating the fish into different tanks. It's so hard to know what to do!

Hopefully someone with more experience in this area will chime in soon.

Take Care..,
soul-hugger

Well, if nothing else it shows that laoches are individuals!!

Sorry btw for the double post. I tried to post and got an error message, so I had to rewrite. Voila - two messages almopst the same!! Perhaps the moderators can remove the first one - I can't seem to.

bslindgren, that's such a shame, because Striatas are cool looking fish. After reading this post, I was motivated to completely tear down my 120 gallon tank and remove all 6 Striatas to a quarantine tank. You had posted in my previous thread concerning the suspicious looking marks on my clowns:

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... highlight=

We'll see if the marks heal. Of course the Striata I've seen harass the clowns is also the largest and best looking.

Too bad. I haven't given up on them yet, and I hope I haven't discouraged people from having them altogether. I would think that in a pure loach tank they may be just fine. I've never heard of them causing problems with other loaches yet, except for the possibility of your case with the clown. Today I watched my largest clown nudge a striata out of the way by pushing it vith its snout. Quite entertaining. I really do like their "personalities" and would recommend them - it may be a matter of having the "correct" dithers, or it may be that certain individuals get into this behavior. See my post under shy zebra loaches", and I'll post some pictures later tonight.

I haven't given up on them yet, either. This is just a test to see if the clowns heal with the Striatas removed. It's a lose/lose situation no matter what happens.