Burmese stone loach

Balitora burmanica

Also known as Burmese lizard loach

FreshwaterFish

Care at a glance

Temperature: 68–79°F (20–26°C)
pH: 6.5–7.5
Adult size: 3.9 in (10 cm)
Minimum tank: 25 gal (95 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Difficult
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Irrawaddy, Salween and Tenasserim basins, Myanmar
Family: Balitoridae

Overview

This is a specialist river fish for a high-flow, hillstream-style tank, not a general community aquarium. Keep a small group together, since they are social and calmer in company, spread across the bottom where they cling to stones and graze the biofilm that grows on them. It is peaceful and only suits tankmates that share its need for cold, fast, oxygen-rich water, such as other hillstream loaches; warmth and still water are what it cannot tolerate. Alongside grazing, feed fine sinking foods and frozen items like bloodworm and daphnia, making sure enough reaches the floor. A tank of about 95 liters with strong pumps gives a group room.

In the wild

The Burmese stone loach lives pressed flat against rock in fast, rocky rivers of the Irrawaddy, Salween, and Tenasserim systems in Myanmar. That means a hillstream tank built for current: strong flow, high oxygen, a cool 20 to 26 degrees Celsius, smooth stones and cobbles, and pH around 6.5 to 7.5. Mature surfaces coated in algae and biofilm give it grazing, and bright light helps that film develop.

Good to know

Balitora burmanica belongs to the river-loach family Balitoridae and was described by Sunder Lal Hora in 1932. It reaches about 10 centimeters, a long, low, flattened fish with broad winglike pectoral and pelvic fins held out to the sides and a raised, lizard-like head, a body shape built to resist current. Breeding in aquariums is essentially unrecorded, and it is not a home-bred species.

Did you know

Settled on a boulder with its paired fins spread wide and its head lifted, it holds the exact pose of a basking lizard on a rock. That resemblance is where the lizard loach nicknames used across this family come from.