Angelicus Loaches acting strangely

[Gordonmiller]

Hi I am a newbie here so please be gentle,

I have 3 botia kubotai who are acting very strangely? I am not talking about the battle dance, I have had them for around 6 months, and initially I bought one for snails, but upon reading they require company bought another 2. The new guys settled in very quickly, and after a few weeks the original started playing with them. A few days ago they started digging holes in the gravel by spinning their bodies, and they do a sort of tremble against the glass, now one of them is trying to swim down the air pump from the Juwel filter. it is a 70l tank with 4 Neons 1 dwarf gourami, Female died recently, 2 Khuli loaches, 2 bristlenose catfish, and 5 swordtails, (didn't have anywhere to put the babies and now they are all grown up.

Gordon Miller

[plaalye]

Hi Gordon, welcome!
It would be good if you could post your tank info as per the first post in this forum. That info will help people understand your situation better. I'm a relative newby but if my conversion is correct, your tank is about 20 US gallons and IMO it's way overstocked. I wouldn't keep kubotai in less than a 3ft. tank and 4ft. is better. As to the behavior it sound pretty normal to me. The spinning in the gravel is how they hunt for snails and they like to swim into cracks and crevices and tubes like your air pump to hide. Do you have enough other hiding places for them? Lets see what the others have to say?

[Gordonmiller]

Thanks for your input, there is a large piece of bogwood, plus an artificial hollow tree trunk, (where they usually hide), plus a mixture of real and artificial plants, the tank dimensions are 2'6w 1'3d 1'6h, if it is overstocked, any suggestions?

[plaalye]

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=16722
Have a look here Gordon and fill in what info you can.
By those measurements I get 35 gallons(LxWxH divided by 231), that's better.
hopefully some others will be along with their opinions.

[loachmom]

Hi Gordon, and welcome.

When I read your first post, my first thought when you said that the loaches were rolling their bodies and digging holes was that they were flashing on the substrate. Flashing, also called scratching, is a sign that the fish are irritated by something, often parasites, but also by high nitrates. But, as plaalye said, they do lots of strange things that keep their owners wondering what's up.
Please do post all your water parameters and other info about your tank so that others here can help you out.