Botia almorhae - from the Czech Republic....

[Emma Turner]

About a week ago, I was visiting another store and stumbled across a tank full of Botia almorhae. These looked completely different from anything else I'd seen, and when I quizzed the person who ordered the fish for the store about where these came from, the answer was the Czech Republic. We know that many hybridised species have been coming from this location for a while, and these fish certainly appear a mixture of several different types of Botia to me. I took some pics in the stock tank and in my photo tank in an effort to capture as many different specimens as possible:









































and in the photo tank - did not keep them for long in here as they were quite skittish:







































The markings were intensely black when the fish were totally settled. These are definitely not the same as standard Botia rostrata either.

Emma

[Blue]

Nice loaches, Emma. I do hope to know what they are. Tempting!:lol:

[Pixelated_Pirate]

Incredible photos. I wish I had a few of those guys in my tank!

[Marcos Mataratzis]

Czech Republic is well known to be a place were they are having sucessiful experience on loaches reproduction using hormonal injections. Maybe they were able to hybridise diferent species (?)
In fact, this markings are uncomon.

Nice pics Emma. Thanks for sharing!

[Mark in Vancouver]

I, for one, am totally against this kind of program. Given that what we know of loaches comes from their wild collection (for the most part), I am far more interested in seeing the results of natural reproduction in the tank, as we sometimes do, over hormonal injections, etc.

I cannot help but feel a little worried that Czech R. is producing a disproportionate number of semi-artificial loaches. I don't mean to criticize folks there who are careful keepers of these fish, but there's something fishy, IMO. Perhaps I am being over cautious.

[LoachOrgy]

wow you just blew me away with those pictures!

very very nice!

[shari2]

Roskubyoyoata?

humbug. I'd prefer fish that are one thing or the other, I think. If they are using hormone injections to breed fish, why can't they at least breed the same species with each other?

[palaeodave]

I'm with you, Shari. If there's a group of fish and one of them has a natural pattern variant then I'd buy it if possible as that is something to enjoy. But artificially crossing species is a different matter and pollutes the strain. Those fish do look quite nice, I have to say, but I wouldn't personally buy them on ethical grounds.

[Martin Thoene]

I'm certainly of the opinion that if the technology exists to induce breeding in Botiine species then it should be used for breeding pure lines of whatever species. The only reason people use this kind of capability for hybridization is because they can. Because it's scientific human nature to experiment.

Like my Czech bred histrionicas which are totally atypical in appearance, these fish do not look like regular almorhae. The question is does that make them necessarily wrong? In my opinion it would be very wrong to breed in characteristics of behaviour into species that don't normally possess them. i.e. breed Syncrossus aggressiveness into milder-mannered Botia species. that would be pretty pointless.

In my experience the 3 hists I have are absolutely the most "up-front" lively and interesting Botiine loaches I've ever kept. I cannot fault them in their value for money, outgoing nature. I've never kept hists before so I don't know their normal behaviour.

These fish in Emma's fantastic photos are definitely different. I find them all extremely attractive and would have no problem in owning them. Like my hists they seem to have deeper bodies than one would expect. They're all actually beautifully healthy looking fish and considering the really poor quality of some wild imports one sees is this necessarliy a bad thing? It could be a case of hybrid robustness. I would much prefer to see beautifully healthy, tank-bred pure strains of almorhae if the technology exists to do that. Far better than catching wild fish full of internal parasites.

I would love to see what these guys develop into because they could be even more beautiful than they are now. It's difficult for me to uphold my purist views on fish in the face of such nice looking specimens.

Martin.

[Cabinny00]

You could argue such a subject for years, there are pros and cons to it and both seem wonderful and terrible. In the wild these two might never interact with one another so therefore science is playing with the natural order but conversely it is within nature to do such things to make a more robust animal. I personally question the motives more then the outcome. The end result is a quite beautiful fish so I can not completely be adverse to it.

[The.Dark.One]

IMO they are hybrids. They look like a cross between dario and 'rostrata'. I am so against this. There are enough beautiful loaches out there and also enough problems with IDs.

[Jim Powers]

Stunningly beautiful fish.
I just wish they wouldn't create these hybrids.
Who knows, in the future, these may be the most common type of botiinae loaches found in stores.

[Martin Thoene]

I've looked at the pictures again and the impression I get over and over again from the multiple pictures is there's some striata in there. It's something about the overall appearance of the head.

Martin.

[Vancmann]

I just wish could visit Emmas shop.

[The.Dark.One]

I've looked at the pictures again and the impression I get over and over again from the multiple pictures is there's some striata in there. It's something about the overall appearance of the head.

Martin.

Hi Martin

On my first post I put striata but changed it to dario. I too see some striata or young dario in them.