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Red Tail Botia Loach (Blue Botia) Aggression?

lr.lyons91

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I have two botia loaches in a tank with two mollies, two gouramis, a golden dojo loach and a pleco. Just recently the botia have been rather aggressive toward the dojo. They seem fine with everyone else, but the dojo is getting seriously picked on. I noticed some signs of stress today on the dojo and I am unsure of how to handle the situation. Is this normal? I know they are semi aggressive fish, but they just started this after being just fine since I got them.
 
Morning. I had to do research on loaches after my stupidity saw me buy a loach on bad advice. They like to be in groups of a minimum of 6, or they will become aggressive and unhappy. How long have you had them? It could have started now as they are getting older. I don't have capacity so if I can't get a larger tank in a month I have found mine a new home.
 
I have had them a few months. I went ahead and gave them to a friend of mine who has 5 others and a much larger tank. So hopefully they will live better lives there. Lesson learned though.
 
Your fish will be happy tho so that's a good end. I felt better when I realised I had actually saved mine by finding a good home for him. Hope you find better fish for your set up.
 
Biotine loaches form a complex social structure with a regularly challenged pecking order, in small numbers there tend to be more aggressive with each other and others in their tank. I was recently able to finally up my Dwarf Chain Loach group from six to thirteen, the young newcomers have made the older ones far more active and their behavior has changed massively for the better.
 
Red Tail Botia are not small fish (~25cm SL) and they are a more fiesty than Dwarf Chains or Clowns for example, so a good sized group of 10+ is going to need carefully chosen tankmates and a tank with a footprint of at least 150x60cm.
 
Your Dojo should be in a social group too, they are very social creatures with much less pecking order aggression. Again, 10+ is desirable and their adult size of ~20cm needs a large tank, my eight were very sedate by day but by night they were doing lap after lap midwater in my 5x2x2. They are not tropical, they are temperate, an unheated tank in most cases will suit them well that varies somewhere between ~10-20C through the year.
 

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