Thinking Of Buying A Sumo Loach

[qwikimpss]

I went to my not-so-local but excellent fish store yesterday to buy some dwarf neon or praecox rainbowfish (however you want to refer to them) and I saw some Sumo Loaches (Schistura balteatus)). I have never seen these before and I have done a little web searching for them and have not been able to find out much other than they are a hillstream loach and can be territorial with loaches of the same species or genus, and that they grow to about 4 inches long.

Has anyone had any experience with these loaches and, if so, would you recommend them?

 

[Lateral Line]

I saw these recently at an LFS. My tanks are really not suitable for hillstreams, so I've not tried them, they will not be happy. They are a tropical fish though, unlike a lot of hillstreams, and do need tropical temperatures. The thing always with hillstreams though, is their Oxygen requirements. Most regular tanks simply do not have the O2 potential of a running water stream.

There are several hillstream keepers on the board though, mostly using cooler fast flowing setups.

 

[qwikimpss]

Well, I did buy hone and so far it seems to be doing great. Doesn't seem to be gasping for breath because of a lower O2 concentration with my tank not being a hillstream tank. I will see how it turns out, if it starts to look a bit run down I will either move it to my 55 gallon tank to see if it does any better in there or simply take him back to my LFS.

(and yes, I did do some research on them before I bought and most accounts I got said that they do great in a hillstream tank but do just fine in a tropical tank, time will tell if that holds true for mine)