A Really Lovely Moment

[Alesha]

My red-tail botia loach is so shy. We rarely get to see her at all. We call her "Peek-a-Boo", because she just very rarely pokes her little head out to say "Hi."

(And just in case someone doesn't know our story, a not-local LFS sold 2 botias to my husband saying they were dwarf chain loaches. My husband didn't know any better and thought he could trust them. We lost one in a jumping accident just a week or so after bringing them home. We were completely unprepared for them. I did research, but there's not a lot out there. Everything I read just repeats the other sites I read. We know she needs to be in a group, but we don't have a tank big enough for them. So we keep her singly, and try to give her a good quality of life.)

I just recently got a new light for Peek-a-Boo's tank, as we were adding the baker's dozen of Green Tiger Barbs and I really wanted to see those colors in the 20-gallon long. This light has setting for white, blue and white/blue combos, as well as varying degrees within each color. I had just noticed some algae growing on my sponge filters one evening, so I lowered the lighting down to about 30% strength. (I'd planned to hit the algae with Easy Carbon over the weekend.)

The next morning when the timer turned the light on, I saw Peek-a-Boo out in the tank. She seems to really love the new spider wood in the tank. What was so AWESOME though was that for the next hour or so, I got to watch her swim around and loosely school with the barbs. It was amazing!!! She's so agile and can hover in one place with tiny little fluttery movements of her fins. She didn't chase anybody but swam around and did her own thing. She even stayed out when I fed them!!!

This has been such a surprise to me! I had NO idea that just by dimming the lights, I could start enjoying this beautiful fish. 

So now, for several hours each day, I keep the lights at a low setting and each day she comes out and swims and plays like she's finally loving the tank and loving her life. 

I am so, so happy about that. It has been such a beautiful surprise. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by akconklin

[Raeburn]

That's a pretty fish 👍

[umfalcon]

This is a nice looking set-up.