Fishes / Habitat
The weather loach, also called the dojo loach, is a long, eel-like, mustard-brown to olive fish with small barbels around its mouth, native to rice paddies, ponds and slow streams across China, Korea,
The weather loach, also called the dojo loach, is a long, eel-like, mustard-brown to olive fish with small barbels around its mouth, native to rice paddies, ponds and slow streams across China, Korea, Japan and parts of Russia. It reaches around fifteen to twenty five centimetres, occasionally more, and is one of the hardiest fish in this entire series.
Its common name comes from a genuine, long-documented behaviour: the fish becomes visibly more active, sometimes swimming erratically or standing on end, when barometric pressure drops ahead of a storm. This is not folklore invented for the pet trade; it was noted and used in East Asia for generations, with the fish traditionally kept in containers specifically as a simple weather predictor.
A group of three or more does well in a tank of eighty litres or more, with a soft substrate for burrowing and plenty of hiding spots. It is unusually cold-tolerant for an aquarium fish and does not need a heater through most of the year in India, doing especially well in unheated tanks or outdoor tubs during cooler months.
It can also gulp atmospheric air and extract oxygen through its gut, letting it survive in poor-oxygen water and even briefly out of water, though this is a survival mechanism rather than a reason to neglect proper tank conditions.
An omnivorous diet of sinking pellets, algae wafers and occasional live or frozen food suits it well. It is peaceful and mostly bottom dwelling, though its barometric sensitivity means a keeper may notice unusually excited swimming shortly before a storm arrives, a genuinely fun, functional quirk to point out to visitors.
It is a capable escape artist and burrower, so a secure lid and a substrate it can comfortably dig into both matter for its wellbeing.
Article content © Ravi Teja. All rights reserved.
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