By doing a little thinking outside the box today when it came to feeding my clown loaches, I believe I found a way to make toys out of shellfish for them. What happened is as follows:
-I gave them their mussel feeding on the shell (adductor muscle and some extra flesh) instead of the usual chopped and cut off the shell. They seemed to very much like carrying around the piece of shell and trying to tear the meat off, all showing much more interest in trying to take the food from a fellow loach than with the usual chopped and shell-less meat.
-Once they ate all the meat, I left the shell in the tank, unsure of what to do with it. There was occasional nudging at it, with overall low interest compared to when it had meat on it.
-I then got the idea to half-bury it in the sand, which had them try to dig it up with moderate to high interest.
-Once they dug it up, I took it out, dried it off, and buried it in their tin of pellet food for an overnight 'marinade', the results of which are to be reported tomorrow. I suspect that when I put it back in the morning, the pellet scent will have them very interested in playing with it.
This could work with a number of other shellfish species too (like clams, scallops, crab, crayfish, lobster, or shelled prawns). And I would also expect it to work for other Botia (I'll try it on the 3 Botia species planned for my 2nd 473 liter when I get them and report back here with the results), hence the title.
The Botia get toys and enrichment (including with their meals) while the owner gets a fantastic display. I recommend doing this to every Botia owner.
-I gave them their mussel feeding on the shell (adductor muscle and some extra flesh) instead of the usual chopped and cut off the shell. They seemed to very much like carrying around the piece of shell and trying to tear the meat off, all showing much more interest in trying to take the food from a fellow loach than with the usual chopped and shell-less meat.
-Once they ate all the meat, I left the shell in the tank, unsure of what to do with it. There was occasional nudging at it, with overall low interest compared to when it had meat on it.
-I then got the idea to half-bury it in the sand, which had them try to dig it up with moderate to high interest.
-Once they dug it up, I took it out, dried it off, and buried it in their tin of pellet food for an overnight 'marinade', the results of which are to be reported tomorrow. I suspect that when I put it back in the morning, the pellet scent will have them very interested in playing with it.
This could work with a number of other shellfish species too (like clams, scallops, crab, crayfish, lobster, or shelled prawns). And I would also expect it to work for other Botia (I'll try it on the 3 Botia species planned for my 2nd 473 liter when I get them and report back here with the results), hence the title.
The Botia get toys and enrichment (including with their meals) while the owner gets a fantastic display. I recommend doing this to every Botia owner.
