Devdevi loach

Schistura devdevi

Also known as Himalayan dwarf stone loach

FreshwaterFish

Devdevi loach (Schistura devdevi) — The Wet Spot Tropical Fish · Used with permission

Care at a glance

Temperature: 64–75°F (18–24°C)
pH: 6.5–7.5
Adult size: 2 in (5 cm)
Minimum tank: 20 gal (75 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Eastern Himalayan foothills, India
Family: Nemacheilidae

Overview

A modest, manageable stone loach that suits a cool community of danios and small barbs. Keep a handful together with rocky cover and broken sightlines, and each fish holds a small territory without much trouble. It works the bottom for food, so offer small sinking items, frozen daphnia, and micro pellets that reach the floor. Keep the water cool, clean, and moving. A tank of around 75 liters or more, with a stony floor and gentle current, keeps a small group civil and active.

In the wild

The devdevi loach lives in cool, swift streams of the eastern Himalayan foothills below Darjeeling and Sikkim in northeast India, running clear over a pebbly bed. Recreate that with fine gravel and smooth stones, moderate to strong flow, and good oxygen. Keep it cool, from 18 to 24 degrees Celsius, with a pH of 6.5 to 7.5. It is a fish of fresh, moving hill water, so avoid warm, still conditions.

Good to know

Schistura devdevi is a small stone loach, reaching about 5 centimeters, with neat, regular barring. It was described in 1935 by Sunder Lal Hora, the great chronicler of India's hill-stream fishes, and named after Dev Dev Mukerji, a young Indian ichthyologist of the same period. It belongs to the family Nemacheilidae and has no recorded aquarium breeding.

Did you know

Its describer, Sunder Lal Hora, built a famous idea from fishes like this one: the Satpura hypothesis, an argument about how hill-stream animals spread across India along old mountain chains.