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Hora's Loach
Yasuhikotakia lecontei
📍 Southeast Asia
Hora's Loach (Yasuhikotakia lecontei) is an active and visually striking loach from Southeast Asia, featuring a sleek body with distinctive orange and black patterning. It is a lively, social fish that does best when kept in groups and provided with plenty of hiding spots. Like many loaches, it is known for its playful and sometimes boisterous behavior, making it an entertaining addition to a community aquarium.
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Care Guide
Diet
Hora's Loach is an omnivore that thrives on a varied diet including high-quality sinking pellets, frozen or live bloodworms, tubifex, and brine shrimp. It will also eagerly consume snails, making it a natural pest controller in planted tanks. Feed 1-2 times daily, offering only what can be consumed within a few minutes to maintain water quality.
Behavior
Hora's Loach is an energetic and social fish that should be kept in groups of at least four to reduce stress and prevent aggression toward tankmates. It is most active during dawn and dusk, spending much of its time foraging along the substrate and exploring caves and driftwood. It can be nippy toward slower or long-finned fish, so tankmate selection should be made carefully.
Breeding
Breeding Hora's Loach in captivity is considered very difficult and rarely achieved in home aquariums, as they are believed to require specific hormonal triggers or seasonal cues found in the wild. Commercial breeding typically involves hormone injections. No reliable home breeding protocol is well established for this species.
Tank Mates
Similar activity level and water requirements; both are semi-aggressive so monitor for fin nipping
Hardy and active, compatible water parameters, can hold their own with semi-aggressive loaches
Occupies similar zones but is fast enough to avoid harassment; shares water parameters
Same genus behavior and water requirements; coexist well in groups
Bottom dweller but armored and not easily bullied; compatible water parameters
Fast-moving midwater fish that can avoid loach aggression; similar water requirements
Common Diseases
Ich (White Spot Disease)
Small white spots resembling salt grains on body and fins, flashing, lethargy, loss of appetite
Raise temperature gradually to 28-30°C, use ich-specific medication; note loaches are sensitive to many medications so use half doses of copper-free treatments
Skinny Disease (Internal Parasites)
Wasting body despite normal appetite, hollow belly, lethargy
Treat with antiparasitic medication such as fenbendazole or levamisole added to food or water
Bacterial Infection (Columnaris/Fin Rot)
Frayed or disintegrating fins, white or gray patches on body, ulcers
Improve water quality immediately, treat with antibacterial medication such as kanamycin or nitrofurazone
Velvet (Oodinium)
Gold or rust-colored dust on skin, rapid gill movement, flashing against objects
Dim lighting, raise temperature slightly, treat with copper-based medication at reduced dose due to loach sensitivity; remove invertebrates before treatment
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Quick Facts
- diet
- Omnivore – sinking pellets, frozen/live foods, snails, worms
- lifespan
- 8-12 years
- max size
- 13 cm (5 in)
- tank size
- 55 gallons minimum
- temperament
- semi-aggressive
Water it likes
- ph
- 6.5-7.5
- ammonia
- 0 ppm
- nitrate
- <20 ppm
- hardness
- 3-12 dGH
- temperature
- 75–82°F (24–28°C)