Walmart Rescue

[hsherman1986]

Well, was in the fish section at walmart, pricing new finlters, and happened to see this guy....(click for larger image)



price tag? Only $7.49 (super cheap compared to the $19.99 at my lfs).

So, I took the chance and picked him up. He's an angelicus botia. He doesn't look too bad, no ich, or other signs of disease. He is in qt now, and if he makes it through qt with no problems, I will pick him up some buddies. Wish him luck!![/img]

[theotheragentm]

Good luck. I wish I could rescue every poor fish at a LFS.

[zenkatydid]

oh what a cute little guy! i wish we had more interesting loaches here

[farmgirl]

Good for you!! Our Walmart has a fish section, but the fish are ALWAYS sick or ichy or they're missing half their fins. Good luck, and I hope you enjoy your new buddy!!

[coldmachineUK]

He has quite uniform markings for a botia kubotai.

I think this is rostrata, not kubotai (kubotai is the real name for 'angelicus'). The markings are too uniform, and the twin banding is another giveaway. Check out botia rostrata on Loaches Online (or on Google)

Nice looking fish, and glad s/he's gone to a good home!

[hsherman1986]

i will look that up. He was labeled as a border loach, and I came home and did research before I went back for him, and everything I found said he was an angelicus. I will do a little bit more to double check though.

I think I may go to some of the other local walmarts and see if anyone has anymore. I have been wanting this loach for a while, but had to get up the guts for the $20 price tag. That is the only reason I can rescue them lol.

[coldmachineUK]

There's a lot of border loaches (aka Burmese Border Loaches), ranging from botia such as kubotai (and variants within that), to a huge variety of schistura which look nothing like botia.
There's so many variants, I guess the shop erred on the safe side in the ID

The rostrata and kubotai have pretty much identical requirements and you may even find they'll school together (if you had one rostrata and two kubotai for example).

[hsherman1986]

yea upon looking at more pictures, he does look more like a rostrata. Hopefully anymore that I find will be the same. I considered putting him with my yoyos if I can't find him any buddies.

[LandGhoti]

Cute! Good luck to your [whichever species you think he is] loach. I rescued a botia kubotai from Petsmart last November; couldn't believe my eyes when I saw such a cool fish there.

I'm sure this one will provide much entertainment for you. Mine used to notice me sitting right next to the glass watching and he would come over and sit on the gravel and have a staring contest with me.

[hsherman1986]

ok, so I went to the lfs today to find my new guy some buddies, and had already decided to lay out the $20 per fish to get him at least two more friends. Well, not only did they have the same loach, but they were marked down by HALF PRICE!! They were only $9.99!! So, I picked up the last three that they had!

They are SO BIG compared to my little guy from walmart, still have the same markings, but looking at them, they are defintly the kubotai, just juvis that haven't fully colored up yet (apparently their markings change and they show more black as they get older).

The little guy seems to appreciate the company. He comes out every now and again and trys to swim with them, but can't seem to keep up sometimes. They have been out and about all night so far (unless I come up to the tank to take pictures, then they go hide).

edit: was able to get somme pics so ya'll could see. I really think now that they are both kubotai

little guy is in the middle of the pic, see two of the big guys in the upper left corner (click for bigger pics)


little guy is at the bottom, closer to the grass, big guy is more in the corner


the three big guys


see the similarities? am I right?