Botia striata
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Zebra loach | ||||||||||||||
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| Botia striata (Narayan Rao, 1920) |
The zebra loach, Botia striata, is a small freshwater fish native to Southern India. The maximum size is about 3 in (7.8 cm). It lives in tropical climate with temperature range of 23 - 26 ° C, and prefers water with 6.0 to 8.0 pH, 5.0 to 12 dGH.
Zebra loaches are peaceful fish suitable to community aquarium tanks. However, being bottom feeder, they may show some aggression against other smaller bottom feeder. Therefore, small corydoras are not suggested as a tankmate. They should be kept in group of at least two or three and require some caves to hide during most of daylight. B. striata will accept a wide variety of fish foods, including live food such as blackworms, snails and small shrimps, and most commercial brands of sinking fish foods.
This species is shy, and will spend much of its time hiding away. Also rarely, during times of stress it has been seen to attack smaller fish such as tetras.
[edit] References
- Botia striata (TSN 640127). Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved on 11 March 2006.
- "Botia striata". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. May 2005 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2005.
