Bengal loach

Care at a glance

Overview

The Bengal loach is a striped, social botiid loach for the bottom of a freshwater community tank. It is best kept by someone with a little experience.

Caring for the Bengal loach

Keep Bengal loaches in a group of six or more. They form a loose pecking order and spend the day chasing and foraging together. Kept alone or in pairs, they tend to turn nervous or pushy. A group is comfortable in 37 gal (140 L) or more.

Give them a soft substrate, water-worn rocks, tangles of driftwood and hardy plants that create shady lanes. Hold the water at 73 to 79°F (23 to 26°C) and a pH of 6.0 to 7.5, with brisk, well-oxygenated flow. Keep it clean, since they come from habitats that stay fresh and moving year round.

They stay near the bottom, sifting sand and rooting through plants and wood for food, and they make short work of nuisance snails. Offer sinking pellets, frozen bloodworms and blackworms, along with the odd blanched vegetable.

The Bengal loach is mostly peaceful but lively, so choose robust, similarly active tank mates. Handle it gently near nets, since its eye spines can catch. It is an egg scatterer that makes spawning migrations in the wild, and there is no reliable record of it breeding in home aquariums.

Good to know

Botia dario is a member of Botiidae, also sold as the queen loach. Its older scientific name is Cobitis dario, given by Hamilton in 1822 from specimens in the Ganges. Its golden-yellow body is crossed by seven or more dark bands. As with all botiine loaches, it has a bifid, erectile spine tucked below each eye that it can raise in defense. Trade stock is wild caught or farmed.

In the wild

The Bengal loach comes from the Ganges and Brahmaputra river systems of India, Bangladesh and Bhutan. It lives in clear, flowing stretches over sand, gravel and stone.

Common questions

Related species

• 

  Burmese border loach

  Botia histrionica

  5.1 in (13 cm) · 53 gal (200 L)

  5.1 in (13 cm)53 gal (200 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)

• 

  Emperor loach

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  5.5 in (14 cm) · 42 gal (160 L)

  5.5 in (14 cm)42 gal (160 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)

• 

  Gangetic loach

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  4.7 in (12 cm) · 42 gal (160 L)

  4.7 in (12 cm)42 gal (160 L)66–81°F (19–27°C)

• 

  Polka-dot loach

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  5.9 in (15 cm) · 42 gal (160 L)

  5.9 in (15 cm)42 gal (160 L)72–82°F (22–28°C)

• 

  Zebra loach

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  3.5 in (9 cm) · 37 gal (140 L)

  3.5 in (9 cm)37 gal (140 L)70–79°F (21–26°C)

• 

  Yoyo loach

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  6.3 in (16 cm) · 42 gal (160 L)

  6.3 in (16 cm)42 gal (160 L)66–81°F (19–27°C)