Loach Breed Confusion

[fishiefishfish]

I bought two loaches a few months ago and am wondering what breed one of them is, I know one is a golden zebra loach but not sure what breed the other one is? I was told they were the same but the smaller one has different markings. They pair up except the zebra loach chases the other one around alot. they have made/found a burrow under a large rock in the tank to hide in which is nice. the one I am unsure of is the same colour as golden zebra loach but has a line that goes horisontally down the body with small dots where the vertical stripes meet up. I have seen a pokadot loach on the net and mine doesnt have as many spots as that. do the golden zebra loaches have different markings for different sexes? thanks for any help

 

[loachman]

I bought two loaches a few months ago and am wondering what breed one of them is, I know one is a golden zebra loach but not sure what breed the other one is? I was told they were the same but the smaller one has different markings. They pair up except the zebra loach chases the other one around alot. they have made/found a burrow under a large rock in the tank to hide in which is nice. the one I am unsure of is the same colour as golden zebra loach but has a line that goes horisontally down the body with small dots where the vertical stripes meet up. I have seen a pokadot loach on the net and mine doesnt have as many spots as that. do the golden zebra loaches have different markings for different sexes? thanks for any help

Many botia have significant pattern changes as they age. It is possible that is why they look different. Otherwise, b. rostrata, b. histrionica and b. kubotai look very similar as juveniles. There also appears to be some confusion over whether what is typically ID'd as a b. rostrata is actually the same fish that was originally described as b. rostrata (the paper that originally describes it apparently differs from the contemporary ID of the fish...leading to a decent amount of confusion. or so I've heard).

Check here for some pics that may help with an ID

B. histrionica
B. rostrata
B. kubotai

 

[fishiefishfish]

hello thankyou for those links. the one that is different markings matches the one in the bottom picture so they obviously are the same breed, just different markings. Can you help as to why it stays small and the other one has doubled in size? I was told that when loaches are in a tank that one will be dominant and not let the other one feed and so therefore it wont grow. the smaller one gets chased away from food all the time, i was watching this the other day, so how can i help this? there are two of these loaches, will having more stop this happening?

 

[loachman]

hello thankyou for those links. the one that is different markings matches the one in the bottom picture so they obviously are the same breed, just different markings. Can you help as to why it stays small and the other one has doubled in size? I was told that when loaches are in a tank that one will be dominant and not let the other one feed and so therefore it wont grow. the smaller one gets chased away from food all the time, i was watching this the other day, so how can i help this? there are two of these loaches, will having more stop this happening?

More should help. With a group, aggression is split.

Other things to try would be to feed on different sides of the tank. It never worked for me when I had a smaller tank (they'd always go for the same food regardless...like 2 children over a toy) but it is easy to try.