Veggie Botia striata

[Themuleous]

Hi All,

I added three Botia striata to my work tank and they dont seem to have touched the snails, the reason I added them in the first place! They do however go nuts for the algae wafers I put in the tank for the shrimp?

Just wondered if anyone else had vegetarian loaches?!?!?!

Sam

 

[JamesM]

I've got a 6 or 7 year old almost veggie Botia almorhae.

I bought one to go snail hunting with no intention of keeping him long term, but he's such a character I've never been able to bring myself to part with him (same story for my 12" daily gardener plec). Apparently, loaches shouldn't be kept on their own, but mine has been happy all this time teaming up with a sole Panda Cory. They chase each other, play, hunt (for algae wafers! ) and even sleep together! Stupid fish Every now and then I do see him go for some live bloodworm, but in most cases he avoids it and heads straight for the wafer feeding corner.

 

[sanj]

Heloo, I have several striata and histronica and a plague of Malaysian livebearing snails! However they have cleaned me out of all other species except for the Nerites. Loaches will eat snails, but they would rather eat the wafers. 🙂

 

[Themuleous]

Rightyho! I'll starve them for a bit and see what happens 😉

Sam

 

[chris1004]

Hi,

I have a group of 8 Botia Striatas and they treated my pogostomen helferi like a salad bar at first but once they'd demolished that they went on to clear the tank of snails completly. They eat anything but particularly seem to like bloodworm and spirilina flakes.

Regards, Chris.