Tubercled flower loach

Traccatichthys tuberculum

Also known as Jian River flower loach

FreshwaterFish

Care at a glance

Temperature: 64–77°F (18–25°C)
pH: 6.5–7.5
Adult size: 4.2 in (10.6 cm)
Minimum tank: 29 gal (110 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Social
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Jian River, Guangdong, China
Family: Nemacheilidae

Overview

Care for this loach follows its genus: cool-leaning, well-oxygenated water, open patrol routes, and small meaty foods. It is a social, mostly peaceful fish that settles best as a small group, where the members interact and jostle constantly without doing harm. Give it an open floor with rounded stones and roots for cover, and keep it with other calm, current-tolerant stream fish. It works the bottom and takes sinking granules, frozen bloodworm, and chopped foods willingly. Because it is active and grows to a fair size for a loach, give it a tank of around 110 liters with brisk flow.

In the wild

Traccatichthys tuberculum is known only from the Jian River, a coastal drainage in Guangdong, southern China, where it lives in mild, flowing streams. Keep it on the cool side of tropical, 18 to 25 degrees Celsius, with a pH of 6.5 to 7.5, steady current, and clean, oxygen-rich water. Furnish the floor with sand, cobbles, and roots that give the fish shaded lanes and refuges between open runs.

Good to know

This is a stone loach of the family Nemacheilidae, growing to around 10 to 11 centimeters. Its name refers to small raised tubercles on the rays of the pectoral fins, a feature that helped separate it from its two Chinese relatives when it was described in 2012. Such tubercles are common in stream cypriniforms and are usually most developed in breeding males. Aquarium spawning has not been reported.

Did you know

The bumps that give this loach its name sit on the pectoral fin rays, not on the body. They are the kind of raised tubercle many stream fishes grow, and in this genus they helped tell one look-alike species from another.

Tank mates

Tubercled flower loach is a mostly peaceful, social species that keeps to the bottom. These picks match on water type, temperature, pH, size and temperament.