| Hora's Loaches: |
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Hora's Loach |
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Skunk Loach |
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Botia morleti |
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formerly Botia horae |
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6.8 |
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74-80 deg. F. |
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4 inches / 10 cm. |
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Do not place in tanks smaller than 20 gallons, 30+ gallons is preferred. |
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Egg-layers |
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Prefers live but will eat flake, frozen blood worms, sinking tablets, shrimp pellets. |
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Great scavengers and they love to feed on snails, great if you want to control snail population. |
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Bright, but not direct sunlight. |
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Mildly aggressive, caution when used as a community fish. |
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Hora's Loaches are a pretty aggressive loach in my opinion, they have been known to tear up smaller fish, and fish with fancy billowing fins. These little fish can withstand temperatures of 74- 84 F. and are generally considered very hearty fish. They are highly active at all hours as long as the lighting is not too bright and plenty of rockeries or other hiding places are present in the tank. They prefers live or frozen foods but are not particularly fussy. It is an orange brown loach with a vivid black stripe running from snout to tail along its back, vertical stripes appear on their sides with age. Like most Botia sp., it is laterally compressed and quite arched. They also make clicking noises when they chase each other. They get really loud sometimes and they make popping sounds when they eat from the surface. |
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The adult species likes to be left alone, while the juvenile Hora's loach likes to shoal in groups of 4-5. When purchasing these fish, ask the store clerk to double bag these fish because the have spines that can poke through the bag. The Hora's loach can jump out of the aquarium if there's no lid, so be careful! The Hora's loach, like other Loaches (Clown Loach is often referred to as the Hora's bigger, gentler brother ) will often trick people by pretending to be dead by lying on it's side. Do not be tricked by this action! |