Zebra loach

Botia striata

FreshwaterFish

Care at a glance

Temperature: 70–79°F (21–26°C)
pH: 6.0–7.5
Adult size: 3.5 in (9 cm)
Minimum tank: 37 gal (140 L)
Temperament: Mostly peaceful
Social behavior: Schooling
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: India
Family: Botiidae

Overview

The zebra loach is a small, finely striped botiid that is best kept in a group of six or more, where it is calm, confident, and active across the day. It stays on the bottom, working through sand and combing rock and wood for food, and it happily eats pest snails. It is one of the more peaceful botiids and suits a community of small to medium, calm fish. Feed sinking pellets, frozen bloodworms, blackworms, and the odd algae wafer, making sure food reaches the floor. A group is comfortable in a well-planted tank of around 140 liters or larger with caves and cover.

In the wild

Botia striata is native to the Western Ghats of southern India, where it lives in clear, flowing forest streams over rock, gravel, and sand. The water is moderately warm at 21 to 26 C and slightly acidic to neutral, around pH 6 to 7.5. A good tank copies that with a soft substrate, water-worn stones and driftwood forming caves, hardy plants, and brisk, well-oxygenated flow. Clean, stable water matters to this loach, and shaded retreats among the rockwork give the group places to rest between spells of foraging.

Good to know

Botia striata is a botiid loach reaching only about 9 cm, making it one of the smaller true botias. Its body carries dozens of fine, wavy stripes, a much busier pattern than most of its banded relatives. Like all botiine loaches it has a sharp, erectile spine set below each eye that it can raise in defense. Breeding is not recorded in home aquaria, so the fish offered for sale are farm raised or wild caught.

Did you know

The zebra loach has a narrow natural range in the streams of India's Western Ghats, and habitat loss there has led the IUCN to assess it as endangered. Most fish in the hobby are now commercially bred rather than taken from these shrinking wild populations.