Botia Histrionica - Breeding?

[starsatnight]

hi there - i have 2 adult botia histrionica and am wondering if they are starting to try to spawn.

they are normally a rich gold and black colour, however tonight after feeding them blood worms i noticed that one was quite pale - almost ghostly in colour and the other had "lost" some colour as well, but not nearly as dramatically.

what really is making me wonder about breeding display is that the two began to shimmy back and forth sort of bumping against each other and one was shimmying over the entire small area they were "cavorting" in. sorry! don't know how other to say this

does anyone have any experience with how this loach breeds? i've searched online and all i've been able to come up with is that home breeding has not been successful.

 

[mikev]

Graying out usually occurs during a dominance fight.

You should keep a large shoal, 2 is not enough to establish the social order structure needed by Botia's.

 

[Rubix]

Mikev, as usual, hit the nail on the head. My money's also on a dominance battle. Consider your tank before adding more though, it's only 25 gallons which is small for the Botiine loaches. An upsize and 3-4 more histrionicas would be ideal