We recommend:

Loaches (Cobitidae).

Loach links. One of the best websites devoted to a group of fishes, as good as the best of the cichlid sites, is Jeff Shafer's "Loaches On-Line."

There's lots more about loaches at Jeff and Cassi Dietsch's site, at its new location, including many links. A good introduction to Botias was written by Patty Marshik for the Minnesota Aquarium Society Aquazine back in 1989. Mike Ophir is a name you know if you're interested in loaches: his web page is devoted to loaches.

Botia spp. in general. Botia are all high-backed flat-bellied bottom feeders, mostly quite nocturnal and shy, some more aggressive than others, often more or less territorial, —and charming. Keeping Botias singly, or worse, trying to keep "one of each kind" together can lead to trouble. Be cautious about mixing Botia species and give the sociable ones some company, and they won't fail you.

Many Botia have a characteristic fright reaction, which sends them all flocking together and jammed into a narrow space. This panicky shoaling is especially typical of young or half-grown individuals— as our aquarium fishes tend to be when we find them at the LFS. If there's a survival value in the behavior, it might be that the group together gives the appearance of a single larger fish, or perhaps of a few larger fishes huddling together. The whole shoal may be passed over by a predator who would in fact have been able to swallow any one of them. If that is so, and there is survival value in the huddling instinct, the behavior would tend to get genetically magnified with each succeeding generation. Loaches that don't have this fright reaction would tend to get picked off first and fail to live long enough to pass on their own DNA.

Loaches are "scaleless," that is, their scales are greatly reduced in size and embedded deep within the skin. They are more sensitive to certain medications, such as malachite green. So medicate them with care.

Botia almorhæ (B. lohachata) (Yo-Yo Loach). This Botia comes from Pakistan (and so it's sometimes called the "Pakistani Loach") and from India, where it inhabits still and slow-running waters all through the vast Ganges system. Almora, where it was first collected, is a market town and district in the Siwalik Hills, forested foothills of the Himalayas in the northern part of Uttar Pradesh.

These loaches are usually credited with a maximum length of about 10cm in aquaria, but I have seen wild-caught adults imported to New York that were noticeably longer than that. I think the first importations were in the mid 1990s. This species is less nocturnal than most Botia, about as bold as B. macrantha, and it likewise thrives best in a small shoal, where it forms a pecking order as Clown Loaches do. But provide Yo-Yo Loaches with enough coconut shells so they can nip from one to another, like the streaker at the 1974 Oscars. If you're a Yo-Yo Loach, it's much more interesting to evict a fellow loach from a coconut shell than to occupy an empty one. The Y-shaped arches are most clearly-defined on younger fish; my inherited loner was definitely a New York Loach, with a pattern that distinctly read "Oy-oy!" He learned that waggling fingers in front of the glass meant that blackworms were on the way, as soon as he danced on his tail. I say "his" because I hear that a mature female has a longer snout.

An American "Yoyo Loach" is an English "Reticulated Loach" and a German "Netzschmerle."

The mistaken name Botia lohachata that we first had for these fish arose when a researcher in 1912 took a juvenile B. almorhæ, a fish that had first been described in 1831, and described it as a new species. For a long time we knew it under its pseudonym, and you'll still see it for sale at your LFS as "lohachata," if it's being given a scientific name at all. The correct, original name seems to have stuck, ever since it was listed as B. almorhæ by A.G.K.Menon, The Fauna of India and the Adjacent Countries: Pisces, vol IV, part 2, in the Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta 1992— a volume, doubtless, on every shelf. (There's also an illustrated article by Gerhard Ott in BSSW Report (but in German), April 1998, posted at http://www.aqua.de/h.g.evers/bssw8.htm)

There's an article on the Yo-yo Loach by David Purnell at Loaches-on-Line.

Botia macracantha (Clown Loach). "Macracantha" refers to the big spine by the eye, no bigger than you'd expect, though, and perfectly in proportion to this giant among Botias, who slowly reaches 12 inches in a roomy aquarium, and apparently gets to 15 inches in the wild. I've heard several times that males have a longer tail fin with a more pronounced fork, but since they scarcely ever breed in aquaria and take years to reach sexual maturity, only dissection would confirm this. Singapore sources tell one that the Sumatran specimens generally have a silvery sheen over the body; whereas the Kalimantan (Borneo) specimens have a more intense reddish coloration. This could be due to the habitat. The Sumatran specimens inhabit murky water rivers, whereas the Kalimantan ones prefer brown water rivers or even blackwater tributaries. B. macracantha is one of the fishes found in the seasonally flooded Lake Sentarum in the last large vestige of a lowland peat swamp habitat in Borneo. The dissolved tannins and humic acids in black water tend to accentuate their reddish colours, according to a University of Singapore report. I would also think that paler Clown Loaches might be more obvious to predators in the dark waters. And I find Botia colors fade or darken according to their general health and stress level.

Clown Loaches are the easiest Botia to come by. Though they are tentatively being pond-cultured in Thailand, the wild-caught populations from central Sumatra and central and eastern Kalimantan (Borneo) are still cheaper. They are only seasonally available; the price fluctuates severely: sometimes late summer finds the best bargains.

I prefer the brighter red and more golden Borneo Clown Loaches. When I'm looking for a Clown Loach, I select it for strong orange-gold body color and bright red fins, and for deep velvety black banding. I avoid individuals with pinched bellies, for Clown Loaches very often carry Camallanus intestinal nematodes. I also make sure the black bands are in the correct classic configuration, with the front edge of the main body band continuing uninterrupted onto the dorsal fin. Sometimes the genetic information gets scrambled and the pattern suffers. Some people actually look for these misfits; like a six-toed cat, I suppose.

Clown Loaches are the least furtive of Botia. They're day-active and sociable by nature and seem to be more secure in one another's company: sufficient reason to keep them in groups of three or more. Match your community for size, because these Botia maintain a pecking order and the littlest clown may be picked on. Often it's noticed that in a small swarm of Clown Loaches, one or two will grow noticeably faster than the others. This might just be successful competition for food, but the fishes really don't seem that aggressive towards one another. Some fishkeepers think it's a question of growth suppressant hormones diffused into the water, but no scientist has been able to isolate such a hormone. I think it's just a matter of time before the hormone is found.

The National University of Singapore maintained at its website an account of wild Clown Loach collecting that is very illuminating. Juveniles are found in abundance in the large rivers of central Sumatra and central Kalimantan Province during the high water seasons. The adults breed at the beginning of the high water season and locals catch the young soon after. At other times of year, the individuals are too dispersed or too large to be of value to the trade. The size range preferred by aquarists being three to eight centimeters, smaller fishes are held in grow-out pools, where growth is more rapid than anything we ever see in aquaria. Some exporters also keep excess stock to sell later at higher prices when the fish is not in plentiful supply. Size is important in the export aquarium trade. According to the University of Singapore, larger specimens (adults can attain sizes up to 40 centimeters, equivalent to 15 3/4 inches) tend to be more carnivorous and do not fit in well in community tanks. Most individuals are caught at two to four centimeters size as they come downstream from their breeding grounds upriver. About 20 million B. macracantha are exported from Indonesia through Singapore yearly, but the fishes caught are all juveniles, and breeding populations are left intact. So it looks as though the practice is sustainable. The breeding grounds are not yet precisely known. Indonesia has imposed a ban on the export of specimens larger than 10 cm in length to protect breeding adults, but also quite consciously to impede captive breeding programs.

The collecting techniques are interesting. In Sumatra, local collectors catch Botia macracantha in bamboo poles stuck every meter or so into the river bank. The poles have previously been drilled just below the nodes of the bamboo to provide holes adjusted to the size of the fishes that are to be attracted. At regular intervals during the peak season, the collector will lift out each pole in turn and empty the resident fishes into containers or dump them directly into water filling the boat's bottom. Later, the catch will be sorted and transferred into holding tanks, before sale to a middleman. In Kalimantan, in a variation of the technique, a bundle of trimmed and split bamboo poles are tied together, secured to the riverbank and sunk with stones. Fish take refuge in and among the bamboo poles. The collector lifts up the whole bundle and shakes out the refugees into a container. This technique is somewhat more stressful to the fish. In the more inaccessible central Kalimantan, the exploitation of B. macracantha is not as intense and the locals catch adults for food.file:///C:/SA2/index_files/

Captive artificial breeding of Botia macracantha is possible and has been accomplished in Thailand; however, it is still not cost effective, as the wild-caught stock is still much cheaper. The species has some unusual breeding characteristics. Captive breeding technology might be developed to be commercially viable, in order to take pressure off wild stocks. The University encourages the trade to have "foresight to counter the inevitable extirpation of wild stocks." ("Inevitable" suggests an unpromising official fatalism, doesn't it?) If the technology has not been developed in advance, the University warns, then the whole species may face extermination due to unscrupulous fishing methods, and, more worrying, habitat destruction.

I condensed this material from the website of the National University of Singapore, which formerly carried an article "Freshwater Fishes of Southeast Asia: potential for the aquarium fish trade and conservation issues." The original has been deleted from the N.U.S. site:http://www.science.nus.edu.sg/%7Ewebdbs/biodiversitii/bio/aquarium_more.html#clown along with the other material on fish farming.

There is a brief article on B. macracantha in Aquarium Frontiers, species index, at: http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish/profiles/profileview.asp?RecordNo=226

Audra Calvin's detailed introduction to making Clown loaches comfortable in the aquarium is at www.fishprofiles.com.

The spawning of mature B. macracantha is briefly described in the entry at AquaWorld.
It does take quite a while for Clown Loaches to reach sexual maturity. The spawning loaches of a British fishkeeper were eighteen years old!

Botia modesta (Blue Botia). When you buy this species, inspect it carefully if it seems to be an unnaturally bright blue. Various dyed fishes are such a commercial success for the Singapore export market that this "modest" but stylish fish is being injected with blue dye, or more likely merely dipped, to make it more saleable. Look close: dyed fishes don't show their naturally silvery bellies. Recent web reassurances to the effect that these Botias are not dyed to render them more glamorous are misleading, at least for New York LFS, where I have seen the tinted fishes myself. Painted B. modesta that have also been "hormonized" are listed in Singapore-based export price schedules, for example, not to single out some single offender, at http://www.ppaquarium.com Color-injected fishes are also exported from Thailand, available to wholesalers at http://www.jedaquarium.com/products.html (scroll down to 7.Color Fish).

B. modesta and the closely similar B. lecontei are two of a complex of very similar species, that is, if they are all genuinely separate species in the first place. Gunther Sterba, Freshwater Fishes of the World, 1967, illustrated line-drawn figures for each, with contrasting body shapes; my fishes correspond more closely to the more elongated body and flatter ventral outline that Sterba associated with B. lecontei. Their body color does vary, perhaps reflecting a more or less aggressive mood or their state of health (dark meaning well and feisty). Perhaps varying tints also reflect the geographical population they came from. True B. modesta range from a gunmetal silver blue to a faintly mauve blue-gray, but an artificially-enhanced "blue" will fade over a period of several weeks. Fin coloring may naturally range from a yellow-orange to a good strong brick red. B. lecontei is specifically marketed from Singapore as "yellow-tail blue Botia," on the website of P and P Aquarium World Trading ( http://www.ppaquarium.com). Steven Grant had an article at the late www.notcatfish.com, "The Botia modesta complex" getting into the minutiae of rightly naming this group of species from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. I hope he'll find a way to upload this article again. Looking at Grant's photos of various preserved type specimens, some with rather vague information about their original collection areas, makes you wonder how sure anyone could really be, working from photographs and museum material alone.

I have a pair, bought at the same time out of the same shipment, and one has fins that are markedly more yellow, the other noticeably more red. So I'm skeptical. But Mike Ophir, who should know, wrote a Botia article in Aquarium Fish, Sept. 2000, recognizing B. modesta as more compressed in the body, less elongated. He says that as they mature, B. modesta become increasingly aggressive and territorial. Uh-oh. Though my pair periodically throw a lot of gravel around in their hidden hideout under a log, I must say that I haven't seen real intolerance yet. Mine come out late-- unless there are blackworms-- and forage together. The books often say that Botia modesta will be glad of a little extra warmth, around 77-82°F, and Mike recommends even warmer water (a temperature of 82°) and pH slightly on the acidic side. But my B. modesta kept at 75-78° seem less irritable than his description of a species that he calls "not the most peaceful" Botia. Is there a connection? Are my cooler fishes less hyper?

Botia modesta reach 25cm (9¾ inches) in the Sanasomboun district of Laos, where they are abundant in shallow side reaches of the Mekong and in small tributaries. They head upstream in December-March, where they spawn in May and June, returning downstream in June-August. So, as far as trying to spawn them in an aquarium, I figure that even after you've grown them to sexual maturity, and though you may be able to get them feeling restless with water changes, how can you satisfy their urge to migrate before they spawn?

Botia modesta will grow slowly beyond 5 inches; I've heard reports of ten-inch B. modesta in captivity. And they'll live for years. They are social, like Clown Loaches, but some fish-keepers have reported gang wars with Clown Loaches. They haven't been spawned in the aquarium, I don't think. I find these to be among the shyer, more noctural Botia. I made the mistake of buying one, which hid listlessly for a week before I added a well-matched second, which came from the same shipment. A stirring competition for a coconut shell hangout ensued, with head-to-tail shimmying and side-to-side body slamming. The new intruder wasn't evicted til after five minutes of struggle that left both fishes panting. But each fish was stimulated by the presence of the other and would take any opportunity to occupy the other's territory if it was momentarily abandoned. After a few weeks the two took up residence together in a hollow artificial log, where they were rarely seen. After a couple of years the two were moved to roomier quarters in a 20 gallon long. They live together secluded under a log in a thicket of Java Fern and come out late in the evening for some gravel-digging and high-speed chases.

Botia striata (Striped Botia). These Indian Botia are gregarious and mildly competitive, but not scrappy, so keep at least a trio. They are crepuscular, but I give them a densely-planted substrate and plenty of handy caves and coconut shells, and I find they're less shy than B. modesta, but not as bold as Yoyo Loaches. They will methodically hunt down and eat every small snail in a tank, and the planted-tank gurus swear they won't uproot plants. They need some live food, though they'll go for sinking spirulina wafers. Supplement their diet with greens, like a zucchini slice. They'll get to about 4 inches (10 cm), but they'll take their time doing it. Like other Botias, they remain shy about breeding in captivity. 

Links. Martin Thoene's brief fan note and a good photo is at Loaches on Line; Mike Ophir has posted a brief article at his loach site; another good portrait of this "Zebra Loach" is at Age of Aquariums.

Other Loaches. Remember the "Loaches on Line" site is full of good information on all the following Loaches too:

Pangio (Acanthophthalmus) kuhli. (Kuhli Loach). For tiresome technical reasons we're meant to get used to referring to this species as Pangio. I'll admit "Acanthophthalmus" was a mouthful, but at least it did mean "spiny-eye!" The genus Pangio is a large complex of overlapping species, "sub-species" —--whatever that might genuinely mean nowadays--— and populations. Kuhli Loaches have a wide distribution in Thailand and Malaya, Sumatra and Java. Various other Pangio species that we don't see in aquaria range westwards as far as northern India and east to Kalimantan (Borneo). In the males, the second ray of the pectoral fins is supposed to be thickened: I could never see this myself, but Gunther Sterba, Freshwater Fishes of the World (1967) mentioned it. Try keeping Kuhli Loaches at a slightly cooler temperature, 70° to 75°F. They'll appreciate the greater dissolved oxygen at the lower temperatures.

Breeding. Kuhli Loaches are the tropical loaches that have reproduced most often in captivity, though nobody ever seems to catch them doing it. They bred for Al Castro in soft water with a pH ranging 6.3 to 6.8. Castro had five spawnings that produced young. Though he claimed to have learned little from the events, he noted that the greenish adhesive eggs were scattered through plants, especially Water Sprite. The fry pretty much raised themselves undisturbed, in a natural planted aquarium with plentiful sub-microscopic life. Al never saw any sign of a bubblenest, which has sometimes been credited to Kuhli Loaches. See if you can still find his account at the old Aquarium Fish website, www.aquariumfish.com, among the articles.

In each reported case of a surprise Kuhli spawning, the crucial elements seem to be the security and privacy offered by constricted cave-like openings and the company afforded by a fairly large colony. You wouldn't want to keep Kuhli Loaches alone anyway, not once you've seen how tactile and sociable they are. Gregarious. These are crepuscular fishes, but they lose their twilight habits if you give them plenty of opportunities to hide in tight shadowy spaces. Then they'll drape themselves like tree snakes in dense plant growth. Kuhli Loaches would rather live in an undergravel filter than almost any more picturesque set-up you can contrive, and I've known them to disappear for years, to be forgotten, and to reappear, wriggling with alarm, only when the undergravel filter was being siphoned or the tank was being taken down.

Other Cyprinids.

I just hate having to call the following Cyprinids "Sharks." It's too much like calling Mormyrids "Baby Whales." Couldn't we compromise and start calling them "Shark-Minnows?"

Crossocheilus siamensis (Siamese Algae-Eater). When you are squinting at this, barely an inch long, in the LFS, trying to decide whether you have the "good" Siamese Algae-Eater, the one that will eat hair algae or thread algae, which no other fish will touch, apparently, and that will even nibble on your redbeard algae (Audouinella sp), you'll be glad to have a few diagnostic points, which you should memorize right here and now. First of all, the fish you're looking for, the genuine Siamese Algae-eater, has clear unmarked fins, though they might have a faint milky bloom in an angled light; if that dorsal fin has a black splotch, the fish is Epalzeorhyncos kallopterus, a charming enough fish itself, but not the devoted algae-eater you're hiring. Then, the true SAE's black lateral stripe should have a ragged, zigzag upper edge, not a clean straight one, and the stripe should extend all the way onto the caudal fin. On the fishes' upper side, above the stripe, the scales are edged with black, which gives it a delicate net-covered look. If your eyes are better than mine, you may be able to distinguish on its snout the rhynal lobes that mark Crossocheilus as a species distinct from Epalzeorhyncos and see that it has one pair of barbels, not the two that Epalzeorhyncos sports.

Diagnostic points. Clear dorsal fin, ragged-edged black stripe extending onto the tailfin, black-edged "netted" scales, rhynal lobes. Got all that? You will be quizzed. This material will be on the mid-term. The ultimate article on C. siamensis and the four impostors that are most commonly switched for it was written by N. Frank and L. Sarakontu in 1994. It's at www.aquatic-gardeners.org/cyprinid.html

Now I hear that there are three Crossocheilus species in West Borneo that are superficially identical to the C. siamensis we see in the U.S. aquarium trade, all illustrated in Tyson R. Roberts, Freshwater Fishes of West Borneo, a book I haven't seen yet. Could it be that some species are more willing black brush algae-eaters than others? Could some be more aggressive than the ordinary C. siamensis? Most imports come from Thailand, but do we have in our tanks some unrecognized "Borneo Algae-Eaters" (I hesitate to introduce the term) from Indonesia, perhaps imported through Singapore, as Clown Loaches are? Liisa Sarakontu and David Whittaker were discussing "Crossocheilus oblongus" and other species and the possibilities of SAE look-alikes, in the Aquatic-Plants Digest, 14 Sept 1997 etc. "One of the local importers once boasted that his SAEs are from Borneo," Liisa Sarakontu noted, "but I didn't believe him at that time because he didn't bother to check anywhere, and he didn't seem to take my questions seriously. All the other importers have either said that they are from Singapore or 'it is a secret'."

These fishes are usually sold pretty small, about an inch, but don't cramp this species too long in a tank that's too small. When I first wrote this note, I'd just bought one that was not more than an inch total length. It was handling the algae in a planted 10-gallon tank, but I was recommending that within a matter of months it would need at least 20 gallons to grow to its full size, slightly over 5 inches (14 cm or so). But it grew to a good size right there, in the densely planted ten, where water changes keep the nitrates <20 ppm and it had the company of a flock of female Fundulopanchax gardneri. (It's since been turned loose in a 30-gal tank.)

Robert Paul H suggests that you keep yours in groups. He has a good article on C. siamensis at www.aquabotanic.com where he notes that this hard-working fish will also eat planaria (flatworms). He notes that the species is only seasonally available in your LFS. In their home waters the fishes spawn in the spring and early summer monsoon floods, and the inch-long young are caught when the waters have receded in autumn, Lisa Sarakontu pointed out in a post to the Aquatic-Plants mailing list, July 1999. Robert Paul H emphasizes that this species is more agreeably social than any of its scrappy relatives. To imitate him and keep the Siamese Algae-Eaters as a trio in a large planted aquarium is a pleasant plan I've recently put into action. 

Even more exciting is the news that they have been successfully spawned, by Dave Underwood, who reported to the Aquatic-Plants list some details of six 1996 spawnings of Siamese Algae-Eaters, some of them actually intentional! Though his pH ranged from 6.5 to 7.6, his water was fresh and often renewed. Though the tanks ranged from a 10-gallon to 90 gallons, they were all heavily planted. The fishes spawned as a group, scattering eggs in the plants and eating them. To get them started, he simulated a flood season with water changes of almost 95%, provided brisk current and also some calm eddies where spawning occured in Java Moss and other plants. His April 1997 e-mail to the Aquatic-Plants list has even more detail.

At a quick glance, our North American Black-Nose Dace, Rhinichthys atratulus looks so much like the SAE (they are only distantly related) that it would seem there is survival value in the sleek torpedo form with a bold black stripe.

Epalzeorhyncos frenatus (Bridled Shark-Minnow or "Rainbow Shark"). "Rainbow Shark" is now the slightly-too-ambitious novelty name for this handsome fish. Though since the 1980s we have stopped calling it by its old name "Labeo," which refers to an African genus, it's a shame we can't just translate its specific name, to call it the "Bridled" Shark-Minnow. The bridle, of course, refers to the black line across the mouth. The sleek torpedo-shaped body is a deep gunmetal gray to olive-brown, countershaded to a paler belly, with a dark smudge in the caudal peduncle. Though I couldn't justify "rainbow," the best form, which used to be called erythrurus ("the red one"), shows in its fins a very strong and clean red, when it's in good health. The color can be brighter than the brick color of more ordinary specimens, and in the tailfin it almost reaches a lacquer scarlet. When the red shades to black at the trailing edge of the anal fin and in the ventral fins, the fish is male, according to Gunther Sterba, Freshwater Fishes of the World, 1966, p265. If this is true, then could we reduce friction by keeping one male and two females? And reducing friction is an issue with this desirable fish, I'm sorry to say.

I think E. frenatus is one of the most elegant Cyprinids. More often than not, though, the version I'm seeing in the LFS is a perfectly unnecessary albino mutant. Pretty enough, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing.

E. frenatus come from the upper Mekong catchment, where the great river forms northern Thailand's border with Laos. They enjoy some fast-flowing current, and they'll sometimes leap up the filter outflow, like a salmon in the fish ladder of a dam, and wind up in your h.o.t. filterbox. From which they'll escape to the floor, for all these shark-minnows are built for strenuous athletics. E. frenatus will be more comfortable at temperatures around 74-77^oF than at the steamy tropical heat we usually like to apply, and cooler temperatures may help cool some of their hyperactivity. In their home waters they rasp at the biofilm, without getting the kind of credit that goes to Siamese Algae Eaters, and they relish a pretty constant supplement of spinach and other greens, as well as sinking spirulina wafers.

Breeding just doesn't happen in home aquaria, which is a pity. It is bred in pools in Singapore and Bangkok. I understand that hormone injections are used, to bring these fish into breeding condition. Partly because of its slightly cooler temperature requirements, E. frenatus was one of the handful of fishes investigated when the University of Hawaii's Center for Tropical and Sub-tropical Aquaculture was researching ways to help the expansion of the fledgling Hawaiian tropical fish farming industry, in 1996-98. They reported that sexual maturity ("gonad maturation") dropped sharply in October-November and didn't pick up again till March. The researchers attributed this to a discrete spawning season, triggered not only by cooler temperatures, but by changing day-length. Even if you might be tempted to discount day-length as unimportant in a fish that is found at 20^o North latitude— still within the tropics— this finding might offer a clue to unlocking the fishes' intractable breeding behavior. (The report was deleted when the CTSA shifted to its new site.)

At small sizes the Bridled Shark-Minnow already flirts about in strenuous competition with others of its species, and even chases Barbs up and down through the undergrowth. As it matures this fish gets increasingly territorial and jealous, like most of its Epalzeorhyncos kin, but maybe not to the same extent as E. bicolor, the Red-Tailed Black Shark. If you have a community aquarium that is 30 gals. or larger, and if you have wisely broken up its volume into complicated territories, defined by bold dense plantings and shadows, with plenty of hiding spots under ledges, or in hollow logs and under roots, you should try to keep three of these fine under-rated fishes. The trick is to give each a home territory from which it can't see the others. Don't try to keep just two in the same aquarium, because they will be instant rivals who will focus all their energy on battling each other. A third player, however, breaks up the game. You'll need to find three at one time that are well matched in size; one who is only slightly smaller will get the worst of the coming encounters. Introduce them all at one time, in their separate travelling bags, for if you give one fish just 24 hours head start to stake out a turf, the odds will be weighted in its favor forever. A trio of sparring opponents set up like this worked out well for me, til, after a year or so, one died. After that, the remaining two focused so roughly on each other's intrusive presence that they had to be separated. Was this partly that they were approaching sexual maturity? Still, this is not a dependable community fish. What a shame! See some of the varied experiences people have had with it at the Age of Aquariums.

Gyrinocheilus aymonieri (Indian Sucking-Loach). This notorious fish is not a Loach--— a Cobitid:— instead, it's a close relative that's been given its own family name: the Gyrinocheiliidae contain only this one genus, with four species. To sell you this fish, your LFS will label it an "Algae-eater," or more insidiously even a "Chinese Algae-eater" which may fool you, though just one time. Needless to say, this fish has not been seen in China, where Gyrinocheilus is represented in fact, but by a different species never seen on the market; instead it comes from northern India to Thailand. There is an albino variant at large on the market; the blonde isn't any better-behaved. Still, if you want a hefty scrappy loner that mumbles the cobbles in the swift current of your Asian hill-stream tank, this one's for you. As recently as 1992, the Indian Sucking-Loach was one of the twenty species most imported into the U.S..

Like most aquarists, I have had this imposter only by accident, because I didn't know the points to look for in recognizing the "good" Siamese Algae-eater, Crossocheilus siamensis (see just above). Sure enough, as it grew— under my very eyes— it lost its juvenile interest in algae, if it ever had any. Gyrinocheilus is really more of a toothless detritivore; it doesn't even have the teeth in its pharynx that real Cyprinids all have. Before long, mine began ruthlessly chasing the other residents of its aquarium, just as everyone said it would. I couldn't catch it in its planted aquarium, but intestinal bloat carried it away long before it could reach its adult size— of just under a foot long, I hear.

There's not much that would recommend this fish in a community, but it does have a couple of curious evolutionary adaptation. Rather than lose scales from its belly in being buffeted against pebbles in its home currents, Gyrinocheilus has eliminated scales on its underside. More unusual, above the gill-flap there is a small opening through which water enters the divided gill-chamber, even while the fishes' sucker mouth is completely occupied with hanging on to an algae-covered cobble. In the rushing streams of north India, upper Burma and Thailand, where Gyrinocheilus makes its home, it's handy to be able to hang on, eat and breathe, all at the same time. So, while you're staring at that fish in the LFS, hoping it's not the dreaded Gyrinocheilus, remember, if it's hanging on to a stone by its mouth, you can be sure it's the Indian Sucking-Loach!

Not everyone would agree with me about this fishes' character. Kveeti defends G. aymonieri. "As far as the CAE goes, I have had several (well, 6) over the years, housed with various fish and only one has ever showed aggressive tendencies. To be happier, they need a territory they can call their own. If their only territory is an open tank without nooks and crannies, yes, they will chase."