Number of catfish

[New Boy]

I have a 300 litre (80 us gallon) tank with a fluval 304 (1000 ltr p/hr), and an internal juwel filter (1,000 ltr p/hr) and I change 20% fortnightly. Fish in signature. Would I have room for 3 skunk botia? Will there be fights between the syno’s and botia’s? Would I be cramming too many fish in the bottom level?

Thanks
Andy

 

[CFC]

Skunk botias (which arent catfish BTW) can be aggressive little sods but are generally peaceful to non loach fish, synodontis are very hardy catfishes which dont take any crap even from aggressive cichlids so i cant see there being a problem

 

[New Boy]

Thanks CFC,

Would 3 be ok? Also do I have enough room?

Cheers
Andy

 

[CFC]

I dont see any problem with adding 3 skunk botia, however dont expect them to shoal and form groups like clown loaches etc, skunks are a little less social than most botia species.

 

[New Boy]

Thanks CFC,

Will they chase each other a bit then? That's pretty much what my syno's are like - all got their own 'patch', nothing drastic though. Are there any botia that stay at 3-4 inches that do get along that you know of?

Andy

 

[ryan]

Adding three Skunk Botias (Botia morleti) should be fine. There aggression is normally more prominent when they are kept singly, when they are larger groups there is far less aggression IME, they are also only aggressive towards smaller similarly shaped fish. Good luck.

There are several other more peaceful Botia species like Botia dario, Botia angelicas, Botia striata and so on..........Check out this link for information on several commonly seen species of Botia and other Loaches;

http/fish.orbust.net/forums/index.php?showforum=43