Loaches Online Forum

My local fish store is telling these fish they sold me are YoYo loaches but I think they are wrong, sorry for the bad pics but can someone identify them? I need some snail eaters.


http://s1100.photobucket.com/albums/g40 ... AG0177.jpg

http://s1100.photobucket.com/albums/g40 ... AG0174.jpg

http://s1100.photobucket.com/albums/g40 ... AG0171.jpg

Looks like Botia histrionica .

http://www.loaches.com/species-index/botia-histronica

They do appear to be possibly Botia histrionica, but very sickly looking ones. I wouldn't touch these with a 10 foot pole.

Martin.

if its pets mart i got a batch of them labeled as yoyos but they look very much like botia kubotai or botia historonica. ill try putting up some pictures for reference if i can't get these hyper little guys to hold still long enough.


this guy looks like your pictures. this one is the runt. the others start to get the patterns in the black stripes when they get bigger.



here are the bigger ones









so what do you think? botia kubotai or historonica?

they are really hyper little guys, not scared of anything they come right up to me. the alpha however, likes digging and won't come out unless thee is food or other loaches doing loachy dances.

petsmart was charging 21 each for these until no one would buy them. most of them ive seen are very undersized. even these guys are undersized. however, the price went down to 5 bucks on sale now. so i got a bunch of them. these looked healthier than most i had seen in the past. and they are very energetic and hungry. even the runt eats the most of all the loaches. i often see them with skinny disease laying there not moving, not eating. this batch i have had my eye on for about 2 months now. i been looking at them every week or so to see how they were being treated. at one point i walked into petsmart. they had a 120 gallon tank setup with about 25 dead fish attched to filters and floating. even dead upside down cats. and the water was cloudy white with bacterial bloom.

luckily this tank was a display and the main tanks they had were looking good. i saw ich on these guys a couple weeks ago so i was wary of getting any but i couldn't pass up the price. the lfs near me that had loaches was b ig al's and it closed. id rather not drive more than an hour for fish. thats alot more money added to a gas bill to make up for paying a little more at pets mart. if they carry loaches and they keep them in good health for a reasonable price its really the only outlet in the area to get them. wish the circumstances were different but i felt i had to rescue these little guys.

here are some vids of them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnhYfDr5KhQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE6ExNDFV1A

Ok, those look like Botia rostrata. It's often quite difficult to tell the species apart when they are little. They look nice and healthy.

Martin.

ok now that i looked at these. id say your right. they all look very similar. but this picture looks exactly like them.

thanks martin. its funny ive gone from botia kubotai to historonica to rostrata. either way im happy with the decision ive never seen these guys around this area in the last 2 years. but my only outlet was big al's and they went out of business.

i went back to petsmart yesterday. they had the same rostratas labeled as botia spp. Angelicu botia. although i am still convinced they are rostratas.

Hi Snailkiller I'd say the fish in your pics are Histrionica , as Martin said they do look a bit skinny !