Can loaches be raised in shallow water lotus ponds?

Yes

Loach likes to live in the bottom layer of still water. It often appears in the silt surface layer rich in plant debris at the bottom of lakes, ponds, ditches and paddy fields. It has strong adaptability to the environment. The living water temperature is 10-30℃, and the optimal water temperature is 25-27℃, so it should be a warm-water fish. When the water temperature rises to 30°C, loaches dive into the mud to spend the summer. When the water temperature drops below 5°C in winter, they will burrow into the mud 20-30cm deep to survive the winter.

The loach can not only breathe through its gills and skin, but also has a special intestinal respiratory function; when the weather is muggy or the silt, humus and other substances at the bottom of the pond are rotten, causing severe hypoxia, the loach can also jump out of the water. , or rise vertically to the water surface, swallow air directly with the mouth, and breathe with the intestinal wall to assist. When it turns its head and dives slowly, the exhaust gas is discharged from the anus. At this time, the loaches in the entire water body rise to the surface to inhale, one after another, so Western Europeans call it a "climate fish". When the winter is cold and the water dries up, the loach burrows into the soil, relying on a small amount of water to keep its skin from drying out, and relies entirely on intestinal respiration to maintain life. When the water rises the next year, they go out again.

Because loach’s ability to tolerate low dissolved oxygen is much higher than that of ordinary fish, it can survive longer out of water. In a dry bucket, juvenile loach fish with a total length of 4-5 cm can survive for 1 hour, while adult fish with a total length of 12 cm can survive for 6 hours, and they can still move normally when they are returned to the water. Loach mostly comes out at night to feed on plankton, aquatic insects, crustaceans, detritus of higher aquatic plants, algae, etc., and sometimes also ingests underwater humus or mud. Loach matures in the second winter and begins to reproduce in April every year (water temperature is 18°C). It lays eggs in shallow water grass with a water depth of less than 30 centimeters. The eggs it produces adhere to aquatic plants or submerged dry grass. The hatched larvae often live scattered and do not form groups.