Loaches Online Forum

Why are my red tail botias fighting?
These two rough loaches out of the six i have think there bloody cage fighters, I swear lol.
They chase each other up and down the tank teasing each other swirling round and round biting each other on the body near the tail, there at it now as i`m typing lol.
Is this a sign of mating or bullying?
Does anyone know what they are doing?

Probably just a dominance display between the 2 largest. I haven't kept that species but botias all do it. No harm usually, just seeing who will be the alpha loach.

Thanks for your help

Yasuhikotakia modesta can be a fairly aggressive loach at times. As Nancy said, this is almost certainly an inter-group dominance thing. Each group of Botia type loaches has a dominant fish and depending on the age of your fish this may be the first sign of the setting of a pecking order or a challenge to an existing Alpha loach. Once the order is set this fighting may reduce, but it is highly possible that in the future it can re-occur if another fish feels it may possibly have the upper hand.

My Clown Loaches years ago had a change of leader. A huge fight developed between the existing leader and a challenger. The challenger won after beating the crap out of the original Alpha. She had multiple scratches all over her body and torn fins that never regrew correctly. In certain ways loaches are somewhat wolf-pack like in their social structuring.

Fabulous Y. modesta picture by Graeme Robson

Martin.