Crazy fish!

[TheManichaean]

(Warning: no question, story only)

I spent the last three weeks stressing about how my 3" black loach was constantly fighting with my pleco. I rearranged the whole tank to make things better--I bought a cave, moved rocks, moved driftwood, and moved plants. I figured that the loach, whom I haven't been able to [acronym:fce0f2f1df="Identify"]ID[/acronym:fce0f2f1df], must simply be too aggressive, and I worried about one of them dying. Lately, things have been better since the loach retreats to his new territory, the plastic cave.

Then last weekend I bought two 1" clown loaches. When I came home a couple days ago, they were nowhere to be found. Where'd they go? The cave, of course. It's one big happy pile of fish hanging out together in this ridiculously small little cave. The loach apparently can't stand the pleco when they're within 3" of each other, but he's fine being shoulder to shoulder with the clowns. Strange, strange fish.

[BASSNMAN]

Is your loach brown with a black band near his tail? I have one like that and he is a grump. I bought several Hora loaches and thought he was one of them, but the others have a narrow black stripe down the back.

[TheManichaean]

He's black with two or three vertical white stripes (full rings around the body). His tail is black and forked, with a single vertical white stripe down the middle. I'm almost 100% sure that he's some type of Botia because his body type is so similar to others of the species, but his coloring is unlike any of the Botias that I've checked out.

[Fishyfanatic]

Want to talk about strange, we have 10 fish in our tank that don't seem to "hang out" together very much. When they are out and in open water they each have their own place and do not really "socialize" together. The parrots will swim together but that's about it. Everyone else goes there seperate ways. For some reason, every morning when I turn the tank light on, they are all hudled together in the ship. Every single fish except for the eels, which are usually hanging out together outside of the ship. I don't understand how in the heck they can all get into that ship but even the pleco is in there, usually has his tail poking out one of the holes. It's quite funny because as soon as I turn the light on, about thirty seconds later they all bolt from the ship. I think they are all in a group meeting every night planning their escape. What is the funniest part about it is you can always see tails coming out of every hole.