Breeding Zebra Loach (Botia Striata)

[xxianaa]

I have a pair of zebra loach which appear to be exhibiting courtship behavior, i have searched the forums for information on breeding them but have found none. I have had them for about six months, they are about three inches long, one has become very round and appears to be gravid. The gravid one constantly swims in front of the other at 90 degrees, "wiggles" at him to attract his attention, when he is interested she swims off (not fast enough to lose him), he follows her for a bit, loses interest , she then repeats the procedure. They do this 24/7, only stopping to feed or sleep. It clearly looks like courtship behavior but so little information is available on the breeding of this species that i dont know how to encourage them to breed. Has anyone any advice? Also dont try and breed angel fish in the same tank as them, they will push past adult angels to get to the eggs, even though the angels try to bite their eyes out lol for a non aggressive species are surprisingly resistant to damage.

 

[Baccus]

Most loach species are a pretty hit and miss afair when breeding in home aquariums. Even Botia almora is usually wild caught or artificially bred (the eggs and sperm being physically stripped from them and then raised in tanks). I would suggest reseach in what parts of the creek/ river systems B. striata tend to live in taking note of amount of vegetation, current and water temp that might encourage them to breed. Things like large water changes and temp changes to replicate dry and wet seasons.

Good luck with them.

 

[Ellen01]

i recently just did a mass re-plant on my tropical tank, (fish ate most of the plants) while going so we moved the bogwood that is in there that our zebra's seem to love, we seemed to have dislodged or something the next of our zebras (i have 3) the next morning when feeding we noticed that some of the fish had already found something to eat. upon pulling this thing out we realized it was a zebra loach, not yet fully grown, skin still intact. not sure if it had been dead for a while, was about half the length of the three we have in the tank, but completely white. it is safe to say it was a sad morning for us, no it wasnt one of the three because they are still all three in the tank, and one is showing the same 'courtship' as Xxianna said they are seeing, fingers crossed on a new baby if we are lucky.

 

[ncguppy830]

interesting are you sure it was a zebra loach
ps dont bring up old threads

 

[MBOU]

To me it sounds more like typical 'happy loaches having fun' behaviour than courtship behaviour. Loaches like to play which in other species would look more like courtship behaviours... but in loaches is just them playing. The chances of breeding loaches is so incredibly slim its generally fairly easy to rule out in 99.9% of cases if not more.
 
That said... please don't bump up topics that are years old but please feel free to create you own post.