Loaches Online Forum

Hello, glad to have found the forum. I thought i may as well join and learn a bit more about the species.

I currently keep Four Botia Histrionica, or at least i'm 99 percent sure i have Botia Histrionica. I have had a single loach for over two years maybe three and recently bought three more to keep him company.

The three new loaches are pretty small and quite hard to identify properly as of yet but I'm pretty sure that at least one of the individuals is another species that was mixed in the shipment but they are all keeping company well. I'll try to post pictures of the individuals and maybe someone can help me. I think one may be a botia rostrata but maybe even a botia kubotai.

Anyway, i am currently trying to set up and planted biotope based on the indochina region and was looking for some pointers or a gentle nudge in the right direction. I'd appreciate any information regarding botia histrionicas natural habitat. Currently I'm heavily planting the setup with vallisnaria and some scattered pebbles and wood to try and recreate a kind of flooded plain/stream.

At first i wanted to create a biotope purely based on vietnam BUT i found this a bit difficult as the fish i researched tended to be on the aggressive and large side of things.

So could anyone suggest fish that come from this region that would be good to co-habitate with each other? i would like to try and create something that is quite original in terms of fish that would be found in the same conditions and waters. Even if someone could advise on the water flow (strong/slow?) or realistic water conditions and temperatures.

Thanks in advance and hello!

For bottom dwellers, IMO you can almost not refuse a small group of panda garr in your tank.. Avoid hillstream loaches as their food will be deprived by botia loaches.
As for upper tankmates. try all kinds of Rasbora or Danio, chose a geologcially correct and moderately large species.
Please share your tank pics when you finish the project. Good luck!
Cheers,

Wasn't planning on keeping hillstreams. Tank setup wouldn't be right. I do fancy keeping them in the future though.

Panda Garr? i literally had no idea about them before you mentioned that. Seem like nice fish, but i think i'll only keep the histrionica in this setup.

Would Histrionica share waters with any type of gourami in the wild? or bettas at all? or would the current be different. I'm finding varied opinions on what type of waters the Histrionica come from.

Does this help? http://fish.mongabay.com/biotope.htm

Yeah i saw that website it is quite good. It's the only decent one i have found unfortunately.

At the moment the Loaches are doing really well and are enjoying the Vallis jungle. At present i have the temperature at around 27-28 degrees. I'm finding that this temperature is a little bit too warm for some barbs that i would like to add such as the Odessa Barb or Red Ruby Barbs.

For those of you that keep Botia Histrionica, what is the best temperature to keep them at?

http://www.fishbase.org/Map/OccurrenceM ... istrionica

Here is more info about them, a few specific areas where found.
I do not know if that site has a search that might list other fish native to the same areas.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/se ... str_id=305

Here is an advanced search, catfish only, this particular search was for fish from the Irrawaddy River.
That site is great for Catfish, lots of ways to narrow the search. Unfortunately does not cover other fish families.

Thanks Diana i'll have a look.