Loaches Online Forum

Someone on another forum said that they got some kubotai at Petsmart in Alabama, and they told him they would be stocking them on a regular basis. Do you think they're breeding them? From what I hear by word of mouth, Petsmart breeds all their own stock.

If they open a farm in Burma, perhaps....

It appears that B.Kubotai is simply very popular at the moment. I've seen them in 4 stores over the last 10 days (2 Petlands, where they were small and not healthy looking, but also two independant stores, where they were 2"-2.5" and looked great....). And they are available by mail too.

I just spotted them at my local petsmart yesterday. my lfs got some about a month ago also.

from what i've heard Petsmart is getting more and more interesting fish in.. i don't know about their kubatois being bred there, i know the clowns are not... so i'm not sure.

Chances are that Petsmart is branching out, not farming them on the continent.

i asked petsmart about their kubotais, they said they get them from some distributor in florida, and its been the same distributor for past 10 years at least. they also had gold nugget plecos. kubs are $20, gold nugs $40

I just picked three up at my LFG while I was looking for khuli's(very hard to get around here for some reason). It was a very welcome surprise to see those guys there and they were only $8 a loach. Very good deal for them, imo. I got 3 and they are a blast to watch. They even bully around the Tiger Barbs which is pretty hilarious. The Loaches are too slow to catch the Tiger Barbs so it ends up being a pretty happy aquarium. I'm really debating on picking up a couple more if they still have them. I'm in love with these guys!

Araxen - kuhlis are generally hard to find. One species might appear here, another there, but the oddball ones hardly ever turn up. My lfs only orders them occasionally.

With the low retail price asked of them, the only way to make it worthwhile seems to be to import them in large numbers. Kuhlis do not do well in large numbers during transport and whole shipments have been known to arrive dead or dying, probably due to their intolerance of ammonia buildup.

And kubotais appear seasonally, it seems. There always seems to be a glut of them in late winter and spring. This is possibly still due to the timing of their mating cycle in the wild. I have yet to hear of kubotais spawning in captivity. One system, though, is to catch multitudes of tiny kubotai fry and house them in storage ponds/tanks until they are of a worthy export size. This is also done, apparently, with many other Botiine loaches.

As with many loaches, their reproduction in good numbers depends on the seasonal flooding of fields where many species spawn. In captivity, we've heard reports that some species will spawn if you add hormones to the water. It's a delicate balance - keeping wild-caught loaches a manageable option vs. creating "artificially" reproduced ones for the export market.

Grab them if you see them. Great fish.

Here in Las Vegas the PetSmarts are carrying all kinds of interesting fish. Clowns with unique stripe patterns and light colors (bought 2), B.Kubotai (bought 3) and Gloden Nuggets to name a few. I just got a Synodontis with a cool maze like pattern for my African Chiclid tank.

Seems like all the kubotais I see now are much larger too. Just a reminder about quarrantining especially for fish from stores with central filtation systems. Fish are exposed to water & diseases from all the tanks.I got my striatas from petsmart & one got something that didn't look like ich but responded to malachite. They were in w/kubs & workers tried to tell me they were either yo-yos or leporinus! Had to show a picture in a book & explain they are not $20 fish, I hoped they weren't paying their distributor kub $ for them. I end up paying $3.19 because it was the yo-yo code#, fair I thought but not cheap. Only the second time I'd ever seen zebras so I was willing to chance it.
Nancy

Nor only is Petsmart selling B kubotai, but they are also selling B. sidthimunki. I purchased three at a store in Atlanta. I asked the owner/manager of the store where she got the little guys from and she said they were obtained from a fish farm in Florida. These juvinile fish have the chain pattern and one black bar of B sidthimunki, not two like in B. nigrolienata. I was under the impression that in their native Thailand, these fish were protected (IUNC Red List). I hope that the three I purchased ($8.95) were captive breed and that I didn't inadventently purchase a protected species. They sure are a great addition to my loach tank. Happy in Atlanta![/img]

what store in Atlanta?? i'm interested in cute loaches for my tank... they'd work out well.

Sids in PetSmart? I need to visit the stores here more often. I almost bought two today for $22.95 each. Fortunately, I really didn't want to justify paying that price for two 1.5" fishes.

23 dollars for sids??

poeticpyro wrote:what store in Atlanta?? i'm interested in cute loaches for my tank... they'd work out well.

The PetSmart in Alpharetta, on North Point Parkway.