In The Trade: Golden Zebra Loach, Sinibotia robusta

Joe Hiduke, Sales Manager for Nautilus Tropical Fish Wholesale, recently highlighted a brilliant Asian import. “Gold zebra loaches came in from Hong Kong. They’re very pretty and generally hardy, they look great. Available in very limited numbers…”

Following up with Hiduke to get more information, he shared what he could about these stunning Asian loaches.

“The botia is actually Sinibotia robusta, or a closely related species,” he started. “There are several Sinibotia species, they’re pretty similar, and I don’t have a key handy to ID these. The camera pic of the ‘Botia robusta‘ is of a smaller fish. Apparently, as they get bigger the dark bars split. Or at least they do in some populations.

A slightly smaller specimen than the one shown above.

Husbandry of these Sinibotia

“These are temperate fish from China so they can handle cooler temps. They can probably handle hot summer temps too, as long as there’s plenty of surface water movement to keep the dissolved oxygen levels up. They stay fairly small; Fishbase tells me over 7” but most references list a max size around 4”. These gold zebra loaches are not picky feeders, they’ll eat about anything that gets to the bottom of the tank. They are known to be a social loach that appreciates being in small groups.”