I have had my Botia Kubotai loach for three years now. He is my favorite fish. I have not found a lot of information on him and I am far from being an expert on this fish, but I can tell you about my experience in keeping him as a pet.
His name is Bandit.
First off I must say that he is a very smart fish. He will eat about anything he eats flake food, blood worms, brine shrimp, daphnia, and he loves snails and snail eggs.
But he doesn't eat all of the snails. There always seems to be two of each kind of snail in my tank that he doesn't eat and he lets them grow. He will eat all of the eggs that they lay and any off spring that might get to hatch. It's almost as if he knows that if he eats every one there won't be any eggs or young snails to eat later on.
I have also seen him checking on the large snails as if he were cleaning them but he does not try to harm them.
He is the only loach that I have in my tank and he likes it that way. I tryed to put a yoyo loach in with him. He is in a 75gal. tank and he would have no part of it. The yoyo was about an inch or two bigger than he is. Well the yoyo killed his parent snails and started eating his smaller tank mates. Bandit just went crazy and went after the yoyo. He wouldn't let the fish rest he chased him night and day and no matter how well the yoyo hid he always found him.
I finally had to get rid of the yoyo loach.
Bandit gets along well with all his tank mates. I've never seen him harm another fish in the tank no matter how big or how small. He shares the bottom of the tank with 8 cory's and they all get along fine.
He has a real nice cave to live in. There are times that I won't see him for a couple of days, although I do not know why. I used to tear the tank apart looking for him because I would become frantic that something had happened to him. But in time I learned that he will eventually come back out again. Maybe like us all, he just needs some time to himself.
Sometimes he likes just hanging out in his cave and at other times he likes to burrow himself deep into the plants he really looks like he enjoys doing so almost as if he were playing a game.
Bandit is a very beautiful fish and it's always a joy to see him when he comes out to make an appearance. And he's just fasinating to watch.
So far my experience with Bandit has been a pleasure. He is a very peaceful fish and likes his tank to stay that way.
Hope this helps
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