Loaches Online Forum

I cant see anything!

The web site must be down. For a bit I was wondering why noone was asking how I knew she was pregnant or if it was possible in a tank or any questions eet.. ect... But no hits and it was probably because the link did not work.
Thanks for letting me know

Here it is!
http://www2.2cah.com/coppermine/display ... 0120&pos=0

I finally did it! I posted a pic!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I found out she was pregnent when she got even fatter and more on one side than the other. And no I was not over feeding my fish! She died eventually because of her swollen abdomen most likely and I had to do an autopsy where I discover quite a few eggs. in an egg sack. She died from eggbound. That was sad, I don't like loosing any loaches to death.

It looks very much the same shape as that clown on aquabid that I asked about possibly being obese, doesn't it?

That fish on aquabid was looked plumped evenly from the tail to the wiskers. This girl almost looked deformed. Her belly got unevenly lumpy. It is hard to see her side profile from this angle. Her body by her tail area was not too fat compared to her belly.
I wish national geograpic sponsor a study on theese fish and their breeding habbits.

There is info out there! You just need to know the right people.

Here's some interesting reading from Kamphol:

For the record, breeding the genus Botia cannot be done on a small scale, ie in an aquarium. To get the loaches to breed can be done artificially, or as many of the hobbyists prefer naturally in the aquarium...that can be done. The problem is that eggs of Botias as they come out are tiny specks but then they hydrate (take on water) and the cytoplasm (not nucleus) increases in diameter by tenfold. Think of frog eggs, you have a large transparent egg with a small opaque nucleus. This happens so that the eggs can become neutrally bouyant and be dispersed naturally with the current. Therefore, any type of filtration will trap and collaspe these delicate eggs. The only way is to have a large volume of water with an airstone (with a slow bleed) as the only source of circulation to incubate these eggs. And I mean large volume of water as Botias are in general very fecund, A paper in the Thai Fisheries Gazette (42(5): 378 - 380) reports that a 19.5cm 130gm female modesta was measured to have 15gm ovaries yielding a count of 60,000 - 80,000 eggs. Many, many fish tanks would then be need to partition out just one brood (as i do for research), or as commercial breeders do, they use large cement tanks, so that the volume of water is large enough to dilute any fouling (by bad eggs). Once they hatch, the fry are also neutral bouyant, being pelagic/nektonic (goin' with the flow) until their yolk sacs are absorbed and then they start feeding in the water column and then they start hugging the walls or bottom. Once again, only large volumes of water are needed becuase any filtration will suck up the fry...and because you're feeding them, volume has to be large enough to dilute the nitrogenous compounds resulting from fouling food and dead fry.

In conclusion, breeding Botias in aquariums with filtration is possible...anything after the release of eggs and sperm is near impossible.

Graeme.

Very interesting.

I assume that "Botia" does not include Clowns since there were reports about there tank breeding.

Further, it is not immediately clear why the author jumps to the "impossible" conclusion. Of course, one cannot practically have a sufficiently large volume of water to accomodate ALL eggs, but it may be fully practical to transfer SOME eggs -- say a few dozen -- to a large tank without filtration. Or, perhaps to an array of buckets in a warm room.

Or do I miss something obvious?

The 'author' does include Clowns, as this was written before the 'big' change. Reports mean nothing here.

No, you dont miss anything. You just need to prove it to us.

Graeme Robson wrote:The 'author' does include Clowns, as this was written before the 'big' change. Reports mean nothing here.

I'd assume that 1st hand reports ALWAYS take precedence over a theory, no matter how solid (and Kamphol is quite obviously solid). There was a post by someone who did it on LOL circa January (in a 55g tank, as I recall).

No, you dont miss anything. You just need to prove it to us.

I'll pass the honors...but this is something to try for someone who can get some botias to spawn. In fact, I'd think that a large array of buckets (or even betta bowls) with a couple of eggs per container may be the right direction.

So if an egg soaks in water and increase its dia 10X to say 1/4 of an inch, and there 80,000 of them. In a straight line it would be 20,000 inches long or 1,666 feet. My clowns are over 25cm long and may lay even more eggs. I hope they dont lay eggs and dry up the tank...

mikev wrote:There was a post by someone who did it on LOL circa January (in a 55g tank, as I recall).

Yeah Right!