Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V1 #102

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V1 #102
From: ac554 at freenet_carleton.ca (David Whittaker)
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 06:06:21 -0500

Liisa Sarakontu says.....

>> >I've kept one large one (5'') for almost 4 years in a fully planted tank,
>> >and while it did a great job on the snails, I never noticed any plant
>> >damage.  After moving several times, I can also testify that this species
>> >is extremely hardy.  Don't know about the salt, though.
>> 
>> We may be discussing different species since Baensch
>> indicates that this loach only reaches 2 3/4 inches
>> in length. Baensch has been known to be wrong before.
>
>Dave,
>I have also 6 of them and I've never noticed them eating my plants.  They
>really like the cucumber and zucchini slices I sometimes put to their
>tank, and they need to have vegetable-based food in their diet.  My 
>loaches are about 6-7 cm long (2.3-2.7"), but I've seen a 10 cm long
>(4") specimen once.  I checked their length from some other books too
>and this is what I found:
>Axelrod's Atlas			10 cm
>Petrovicky's Aquarium Fishes 	10 cm
>Dick Mills, Tropical Aq. Fishes 12 cm, or 4.7"

So Botia lohachata enjoy a salad with their escargot. These are my first
loaches and I didn't appreciate that they were omnivorous. They are going
to need a larger tank as they're 2 1/2 inches already. Maybe I'll write
to Hans Baensch and complain. Many thanks to both you and John.

--
Regards,

Dave