Dwarf Botia (Monkey Botia)

**bignellm** · 09-14-2012, 11:03 PM

Was wondering if anyone has had experience with this fella eating any kind of snail?
Just picked up one (shop only gets them in 1 at a time--slow seller).

**bignellm** · 09-15-2012, 09:05 PM

Been about 24 hours and now it seems this little one has teamed up with my Cory Cats to form a pseudo school. Hoping to add at least 1-2 more of these as the shop gets them in. But with being 20.00 a piece, will be a little while, so is good the Cory has adopted him.

**escamosa** · 09-16-2012, 09:05 AM

I've had no experience with those guys, but I absolutely love them! Great looking little loaches! I've never heard them being called Monkey Botias though!

**Lady Hobbs** · 09-16-2012, 11:02 AM

Says here they eat invertebrates.
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fres...DwarfLoach.php

These guys have about 15 names they're called.

**escamosa** · 09-16-2012, 02:18 PM

I think they've got to hold the record for the most amount of names, Hobbsy!

**bignellm** · 09-17-2012, 02:19 AM

Way too many names!!! LOL. Got an interesting habit in mine. It likes to use the dead Apple Snail Shell as it's den. Was worried yesterday and searched all areas I could think and thought it dead. Then suddenly caught a glimpse of it's nose peaking out of shell and was like woah... weird. Moved the shell and out it popped. Then it went right back in... and out and in and out and in and out...LOL. Haven't see it take down a MTS yet... and hoping it will.

**Sheermiss** · 09-17-2012, 03:26 AM

We got a couple to control the outbreak of snails we got and they seemed to have done the trick. Couple of weeks and we stopped seeing snails. They are great little guys to watch and seem to like hiding in tiny spaces... one of ours was found swimming around in the filter! We had to lower the water level so he couldn't do it again. We got a bigger shoal when we upgraded our tank and they sometimes swim around with our Siamese Algae Eaters, apparently they will happily shoal with a few other fish species as well.

**bignellm** · 09-18-2012, 08:34 PM

Haven't witnessed a Snail Assassination yet, but do see him shoaling with the Cory Cat squad under the sunken rock bridge. I do see a few empty MTS shells, but do not know if my few Assassin Snails got them or the Mini Loach...