Loaches Online Forum

Hello all. Last night I saw some very unusual behaviour in my two largest Botia's. Usually the male chases the female around but she was persisting after him. They did some back arching displays to eachother then both went completely silver (not even a hint of the patterning that is normally there) and proceeded to circle around each other in a very tight circle at incredible speed. They moved this under a piece of resin root system decoration so I couldn't clearly see what happened next. There was a bit of commotion for a few minutes then they both went off their separate ways and began to colour up again. Really wish I'd had my camera handy to film it or even just get pictures of them completely silver.

Any ideas?[/u]

circle around each other in a very tight circle at incredible speed

-- my Kubotai's do this occassionally, but not the yoyo's. For Kubotai's this is a tool to (re)establish the pecking order, does not seem to have any sexual component to it. Graying out during such chases happened too, but not every time, only when the chase got most intense.

A low quality video showing a couple of mine doing it linked below -- same think you are talking about? (this was a less intense chase: they did it, then rested, then did it, then rested....for long time).

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... otai+video