Botia Modestas are cute - any tales?

[Linden]

I have had 3 botia modesta for about a year. Their behavior is fascinating. I am looking for stories of their antics, just for grins.

I am new to the world of forums, so if I break any rules, forgive me.

Here are a few facts about mine:
--55-gallon planted tank, since 2002.
--One of my fish is big - like 5 inch w/o the tail. The others never got as big.
--I have 3 clay caves - 2 'tubes' and one half tube in the gravel. I also have a hunk of bogwood that makes a fine cave.
--The 4 caves and 3 fish ensure that there is usually a 'cave negotiation' going on.
--The big one occasionally digs a bit - usually to make a hollow in front of the caves. I try to put those little conical snails from my 10-gal tank into the 55-gal so they all have some meat. The digging for the snails if different, usually a very purposeful vertical expedition. The red rainbows and rosy barbs know a waterbourne treat is coming when that behavior is happening.
--They all three chase each other all around the tank..into and out of caves and holes.
--Every few months, the 2 smaller loaches look like they have some kind of courtship happening, with chasing all around the tank and doing a body rub kind of thing - they wind up with scratched sides.
--The little ones also 'bug' the big one - nosing at its current cave and either being ignored, accomodated or chased away.
--The rest of the tank has 2 ancistrus catfish, 3 red rainbows, a smattering of neons, 2 angels that have stayed small, a farlowella catfish, 2 rosy barbs and a couple of khuli loaches (terrorized but there's no way I can catch them). I used to have corys, but I fear my beloved blue loaches stressed them to death. My city water is 'bad' I heard, but I can't recall why, the hardness/alkalinity is not normal. I use a buffer.
--I have actual sticks in the tank that I get from a clean northerf minnesota lake. The catfish like them, but the loaches are indifferent.
--I have seen eye-spine flashes and cute yawns.

I'm looking forward to hearing anyone else's experience with these fish.

[libingboy]

4 years ago, i bought a pair of botia modesta... 1 was dyed... they were placed in a 4x1.5x1.5 with a pair of juvy oscars... the undyed modesta became the king of the tank, almost immediately, and made life very miserable for the dyed modesta... i ended up buying 2 more to spread out the aggression. They were later rehomed in my mom's tank, whose water changes were coming from a deep well (hard water), but the modestas didnt care. They were housed with some relatively aggressive cichlids (a mix that included flowerhorns, parrots, sa/ca cichlids), and they still didnt have any problems with them... they're still doing pretty well now...

[notoo7]

I bought five over a month. Turns out they where dyed, being sold as Rassberry Red-Tails. Two had missing eyes and one got pop-eye. After quarentine, the one with pop-eye recovered except now he has pale shin tone. Been about three months now, they seem fine. They now share a 44 gal with four skunks, two Schistura and a Tiger Botia, plus some tiger barbs and other surface fish.
Right now now all seems healthy and active. My biggest complaint is they like to dig, all five once swam up into one of my artificial caves and got stuck. Recently when vacuuming the gravel they buried themselves. Kinda funny only to see little red tails sticking out of the gravel.

[Graeme Robson]

They 'Grow'

[Linden]

That getting stuck story was funny. I can totally see it. Silly fish.

On the hiding - when mine were new, I "lost" one. Not wanting a spoiled tank, I went on a search and found it under a rock, in the gravel, limp and pale...but very much alive. Another time, after a water change, I was putting the bogwood back in the tank. Up high in the chunk was a small cave, and there was the loach, sort of suction-cupped in! It felt like a blob of algae. That loach is still alive today, despite its long out-of-water experience. I had the wood in a bucket with some tank water, but the thing didn't jump down.

On digging: Mine dig a little, like I said, but not enough to kill the plants - too much work going though established roots, probably. But it does annoy me when, after I have changed the water, vacuumed the gravel, cleaned the glass and put in new filters...and the big one digs up a long buried pocket of clay (that I inserted to help the plants a long time ago). The clay storm lasts for a day or two and looks like hell.

[Vancmann]

Hi Linden, I been wanting to post on this for a while but I have not done so earlier because of the time I might use on this post. Modestas are the most fascinating to me and the most powerful botia, I think. I have so many stories and videos and pics.
My first Modesta was purchaced about 10 years ago (He is gone now) from a local petstore. On my first experience with these fish, I noticed the fight in this perticular fish. He kept busting open the corners of the bag at the petstore. After a total of three bags, the girl at the petstore figured to tie and flip the bag over as quick as possible then tripple bag it.
He was about 3 inches (TL) when I got him; About 3/4 the size of a tiger I had. For the first few hours and the rest of that day in my tank, the tiger kept at his tail in high persuit, chasing him, clicking loud as ever in and out of plants and logs.
Later that same night, after I went to bed, I can only imagine now what happened for the next day it was the other way around. The Tiger was running from this littler dude. He had establish dominance of the tank with Clowns, Tigers and Large Angels. He also taught the tiger a life lesson that the tiger still remembers today. I can tell because with the recent introduction of Modestas, the Tiger tend not to be agressive with them.
He grew up and was always King of any tank (especially around feeding time), including a large and very agressive Cichlid tank where I lost many Cichlid from battles with each other for dominance. The Cichlids would do territoritial battles but for some reason, they would only approach him with a little nudge as if to ask him to move, gently, without provoking him and he would too. This would be when the Cichlids were laying eggs and were the most terroterial. One cichlid was not too friendly with him and outgrew him by over 3times. They had a few brawls that was for terrority. The outcome was incredible. Although These battles seemed fierce but it was not constant and it was superficial damage. ( I want to add that If this was a continuing daily battle, the weak fish would get weaker and soon die and i think it would be cruel to let this go on.) However this was once in a while (3x year or so) and it seemed inevitable in the same tank to establish dominance. It was his way of establishing rank in the tank and I only seperated them when I see a potential of life threat. As the case of an agressive black shark that eventually got to 15 inches and I had to remove and give to someone who can house a large black shark.
Many behaviors of my loaches were documented and some were videotaped.
There are so many stories with this modesta it in unbelievable. I did videotape one of terroritial battle.

[Linden]

Thanks everyone for your insights. My job has been kicking my butt, so I havent looked at the forum for a while.

I have a few questions for the experts.

Graeme, thanks for the awseome picture. Looks like my 'big loach.' How big do they get? Why do I have one big one and the other two are not growing much? Is is because of their gender (which I don't know how to tell anyhow)?

Vancmann, it is good to know that others have seen these fish for the devils that they are. I Have resigned myself to not having any other bottom dwellers (since the modestas are so cool I can't give them up.) I assume you have your videos and stuff on this site; I'll try and find them tonight.

As far as the battles go...
My modestas have a stlemate of sorts against the biggest ancistrus catfish. The big ancisttus will do a bulldog-I'm not moving thing-in cave negotiations. This big catfish is generally shy in the light, so I dont know if its retreat is due to the loach or my gawking. The medium (albino and totally not shy) ancistrus is so busy bopping around that I don't know if the modestas are bugging it or not.

All the rest of fish stay clear, except for bugging for food spillovers. As I said before, the rainbows and rosy barbs actually dog the loaches as they are foraging. From my earlier posts, you can already tell that the modestas cleared out the bottom of tank of cories. My two khulies are in constant hiding (compared to my 10gal, where they are the acrobats).

So. another question.
In my tank, the 55-g withh 3 modestas, i want to know can I get MORE of these fish? What is the humane limit?

AND/OR,
Is there another species of loach that can coexist with 3 modestas in a 55-gal?