Oh? That's one of my Favourite Fish!
Botia modesta
by Douglas De Ment
From Wet Pet Gazette, Norwalk Aquarium Society, Jan/Feb 2002
Aquarticles
I have a number of favorite fish. One of them is the loach Botia modesta. It
is sometimes called the "orange finned loach."
The body shape of B. Modesta is somewhat like that of its more popular cousin,
the clown loach, Botia macracanthus. The range of the B. modesta is
northeastern India, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Malaysian peninsula.
Like many of my favorite fish, I have never bred B. modesta. In the case of
this fish, I’ve never heard of it being bred. My reference book says it has not been
bred in captivity. It also says that sexual characteristics are "unknown but
apparently male is smaller than female."
This loach is shy; it is much more timid than the clown loach. The reference says that
it "becomes quite active at night." I’m not sure of what level of activity
is "quite active" but some of the individuals that I have, do become more active
at the twilight period of my phased lighting.
I have seen specimens for sale from about two inches to five inches. The book says they
can reach a length of 9-1/2 inches. I’ve never seen one quite that big. The fellow
that I have right now, is something like five inches long standard length (which means,
excluding the tail fin). I did have an individual about seven inches long once.
I have had B. modesta almost continuously since 1980. I remember the year,
because that’s the year that we moved to Trumbull. First I had a single specimen.
Then, about 1983 or thereabouts, I purchased four more fish from former N.A.S. president
Bruce Smith, who was moving down south. I had these fellows in the same tank, a
twenty-nine, for many years. I would occasionally see what looked like a nip, but I never
saw any resulting damage. Which reinforces what I read in my reference book: "It is
said that the fish will not tolerate other species but will school with its own."
Over the years, I lost one then another. Usually these losses were found on the floor,
having found some small opening in the tank cover. (So maybe they do become quite active
at night?) There was one or two that I never found, they simply vanished. Perhaps they
flopped somewhere that I couldn’t see. We don’t have any cats, so I’m not
sure where else they might have gone.
By 1995 I was down to a single fish (and I had finally learned to be very careful about
the cover). I don’t name my fish, but he actually got the name "Peek-a-boo"
which hinted at his shy nature. Actually he got this name when my mother-in-law was
visiting once. She slept in the family room where we had his tank. One time when we came
in to watch TV after "Grandma Sarah" had gotten into her jammies, we noticed a
bath towel over the tank. "Let me hang that towel for you." "No," she
said, "Leave it there. If I wake up at night, that darn fish is there looking at
me!" Peek-a-boo got his name.
When we were moving from one home to another, this fellow stayed in a spare tank with
its "Uncle" Ed Katuska for a month or so.
Although this individual fish was part of the original "pack" that I had in
the late ‘80s, it wasn’t tolerant of tankmates of other species. It did put up
with a skunk loach for about 18 months. (Maybe the modesta thought the skunk
loach was a funny color modesta?)
My modesta loaches would readily take flake food, although they loved meatier
fare. (When Peek-a-boo stayed with his Uncle Ed, he loved the worms that he got daily.
What a great uncle!) He also loved it when I would scour my other tanks for some snails,
and drop a few into his tank. He would search out these snails and eat them up, shell and
all, crunching them loudly.
I had this individual until 1999. He was at least seventeen years old, but I feel that
we would have had him longer, if I hadn’t rushed a water change. It was in a period
of time when I was trying to use rain water for some of the water being changed. I’m
not sure if the rain water / tap water mix was a little too cool, or if it was the pH, or
if there was some contamination in the rain water, or if the loach didn’t agree with
the Geo-Liquid that I tried. When the tank cleared, the loach was covered with spots. I
was kicking myself for my haste. "Peek-a-boo" didn’t make it.
Well, in the February 2000 auction, there was a "orange finned loach."
Everybody, stand aside: I would not be outbid. He is now situated in a fifteen. There is a
foot long piece of a four inch PVC pipe, which he likes to stay in …
"Hide-n-seek" is still quite somewhat shy. Now, let’s go through these
tanks … where are some snails?
Reference:
Aquarium Atlas. Riehl, Dr. Rudger and Baensch, Hans A. 1991, Tetra Press. P. 372
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