Gangetic loach

Care at a glance

Overview

The Gangetic loach, also called the ladder loach, is a striped botiid that needs a group of at least six to feel settled and to spread out its lively, sometimes pushy behavior. It works the bottom of the tank, rooting through sand and rock for food and crunching pest snails. It is mostly peaceful but energetic, so keep it with robust midwater fish rather than delicate or very slow species. Feed sinking pellets, frozen bloodworms, blackworms, and the occasional vegetable, making sure food reaches the substrate past faster feeders. A group needs a roomy tank of around 160 liters or larger.

In the wild

Botia rostrata lives in the Ganges and Brahmaputra drainages of India and Bangladesh, in clear, flowing hill streams and rivers running over sand, gravel, and boulders. These waters swing with the seasons but generally sit between 19 and 27 C, with a pH from about 6 to 7.5. A good tank uses a sand or fine-gravel bed, smooth stones and driftwood built into caves, and brisk, oxygen-rich flow. Clean, well-filtered water suits a fish adapted to cool, moving streams, and shaded retreats give the group somewhere to rest between bouts of foraging.

Good to know

Botia rostrata belongs to Botiidae and reaches around 12 cm, with a body crossed by paired dark bands that give a ladder-like look and inspire one of its common names. In common with other botiine loaches it has a sharp, erectile spine beneath each eye that it can lock outward when threatened, so it should be handled carefully. It is an egg-scattering, migratory spawner in the wild, and there is no established record of it breeding in the aquarium, so trade fish are wild caught.

Did you know

Much of what reaches shops as Botia rostrata is actually a very similar, closely related loach from the upper Brahmaputra that has never been formally described. True B. rostrata is rarely imported, so the ladder loach in a tank is often a look-alike sold under the same name.

Related species

• 

  Bengal loach

  Botia dario

  5.1 in (13 cm)37 gal (140 L)73–79°F (23–26°C)

• 

  Burmese border loach

  Botia histrionica

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

• 

  Polka-Dot Loach

  Botia kubotai

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

• 

  Zebra loach

  Botia striata

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

• 

  Yoyo loach

  Botia almorhae

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

• 

  Skunk loach

  Yasuhikotakia morleti

  3.3 in (8.5 cm)37 gal (140 L)73–82°F (23–28°C)