Polka Dot Loaches

[mikev]

Striatas are very high on my wish list, but it probably will be months before I can have them. I'll likely have to set up the final clown tank first...the intend is to expel clowns and yoyo's there, possibly add some aggressive loach as well (modesta? tiger?), and let the kubotais inherit the current 65g to share with striatas.

As for the mail order quarantine: I tend to check things against my own bad experiences, and 14 days would have been useless for my recent hillstream/nematodes incident. Formalin and malachite green are ich meds, and ich is really a smaller danger, and formalin asaik kills some smaller fish (hillstreams). So if this is all what they do, it is better but not by much than no quarantine.

[aquarioten.nl]

I have 9 kubotai loaches at the moment and in the past i had 4 with 4 striata. they where smaller but they were all killed and half eaten within a few days.

[Wendie]

They killed the striata?

[aquarioten.nl]

well there were no other fish at that time and the striata dat were killed were in good condition the day before i found bits and peaces off them.

and i can rule out lak of space since they have plenty of room. the kubotai have more than 14 times there max growth in swimmingspace

[mikev]

Very interesting...this is the opposite of what many have reported.

Could you give us some more details?
What were the sizes involved?
Did this happen when you just set up the tank (or added one of the loach types), or after a period of peaceful coexistance?
Is it possible that something else killed striata and kubotai's just feasted on them? (there were some incidents reported recently where *something* --- likely a contaminant -- killed selectively one loach species, like yoyo's)

[aquarioten.nl]

the size of the "dots" were about 6cm at the time. My setup then was planted aquarium with lots of wood and plants (javavern and crypto's) so lots of hiding places.

the only others in that setup where 3 Atyopsis Gabunensis

this was one of them:

http://www.aquaforum.nl/gallery/upload/ ... al_web.jpg

but 2 weeks after the striata's there were killed and eaten too (i was a witness with the last one when they attackt)

but i first had the dots's for about 2 months than i added the 4 striata. They also eaten a small group of rasbora (were about 1,5cm at the time) but that was a test if i could have a small school of fish with tem.

maybe it's because i feed them small earthworms (2cm) and they see anything that is smaller or about the same size as food.

but the striata were about 4cm so not that smaller as the dots.

[aquarioten.nl]

am i the only one with there "hungry" dots? the frenatus i also have in the tank. is left alone maybe cause it's twice there size . but when the frenatus gets upset with the dots en chase them of the wil just go bet when het alse nips at them the dots nip back...

but most of the time they get along...

[mikev]

I doubt anyone can give a definitive answer here, but here are three possibilities that come to mind (from the least likely possibility to most)

1. It may be a regional variation/subspecies. There were strange stories about a clown variation exported to Australia several months back: those clowns apparently took pleasure in eating other fish' eyes.

2. Occassionally, any loach may turn violent. In my tank, the Alpha Clown killed and dismembered a barb (that barb really deserved what happened to him), and, once it happened, tried to kill other barbs...I saw him going at another barb with obvious intentions and quickly removed the barbs to another tank...My clown was provoked into it, maybe you striatas somehow provoked kubotais.

3. Loach behavior is a question of the power balance. A presence of a larger fish seems to make kubotais and yoyos better-behaved; a presence of clowns "suppresses" yoyos and kubotais. I suspect that something like Modesta would accomplish the same effect, and a large pleco (8" common in my main tank) seems to be helpful too--even if he does not interfere with loaches, his very presence restrains them. What is the effect of frenatus, if any, I have no idea.

What I really doubt is that they were "hungry"....

[aquarioten.nl]

i used "hungry" because i couldn't find the word agressive and had the think up something else.

but youre right that botia's are normely peacefull fish and don't harm other fish unless provoked (hope i spelled that right).

but under the each other there is no agressive behaveour. ok some fight's who'se king of the tank but no real biting.

they aren't scared either if i clean the front window they even touch my arm or nibble at it. i have to push them away if i move plants of shorten them.

they also feed out of my hand... but if my girlfriend tries it they ignore the food and when she cleans the tank they hide...

[mikev]

but youre right that botia's are normely peacefull fish and don't harm other fish unless provoked (hope i spelled that right).

There are exceptions to every rule....

Here is the story of how my clown was provoked into a murder:

Back in the fall, I got three Odessa's. Odessa's are peculiar barbs --- they usually don't show their color in stores -- so you cannot sex them very well -- but develop the color quickly in a decent tank. So while I thought I was buying three females, next morning there were three males there.--trouble already.

Two smaller barbs joined the clowns, and for the next two weeks the Alpha barb was attacking the entire shoal: barbs and clowns alike, while I was trying to find some Odessa's females to defuse the tensions. The Alpha Clown eventually started reacting, chasing the barb away. Anyway, the barb did not stop, and one day he turned up very dead, with his belly torn apart. The other two idiot barbs immediately started fighting, and when I saw the Alpha Clown moving against the new troublemaker in a determined way, I had to remove the barbs to another tank asap.

I think this qualifies as a "justified homicide"...the Alpha Clown did what he was supposed to do in protecting his tribe..... and he showed no signs of aggression since.

------

What color are your kubotai's btw?
(My aggressive one happens to be very black...probably not significant, since he is also far the largest, but who really knows...)

[aquarioten.nl]

it almost seems i have to kinds of kubotai. 5 with large yellow dots en 4 darker ones wit small yellow dots...

but the biggist one and the one that gets the best spot in the tank is one with smaller yellow dots.