Taxonomy & naming
Schistura reidi was described in 1945 by Hugh McCormick Smith, the American ichthyologist whose decades of work on Thai freshwater fishes produced dozens of species still recognized today. The species epithet honours Earl D. Reid of the Division of Fishes at the United States National Museum (now the Smithsonian). It remains in the genus Schistura, part of the family Nemacheilidae — the stone or brook loaches — which is by far the largest of the loach families and includes many species, like this one, known only from a single river basin.
Schistura has absorbed a great many species over the decades as the old, broad genera Noemacheilus and Nemacheilus were progressively split apart; the Catalog of Fishes governs the currently valid combination, and Schistura reidi has stood without a change of genus since its description. GBIF and FishBase both list Schistura reidi (Smith, 1945) as the current valid name.
Morphology
Schistura reidi is a small, elongate loach, reaching a maximum reported length of about 3.5 in standard length (roughly 3.5 in total length as commonly cited). Like other members of its genus it has the classic nemacheilid build: a slender, rounded-to-compressed body, a pointed snout with barbels for probing the substrate, and — as in most true loaches — an erectile suborbital spine that can be flicked out beneath the eye when the fish is handled or threatened.
The skin is functionally scaleless, covered in tiny, deeply embedded scales rather than the larger overlapping scales of most other freshwater fish groups. This near-nakedness is a defining trait of the family and matters directly for how the species should be handled and medicated in captivity. Detailed colour-pattern and fin-count data beyond the original description do not appear in the cached sources, so finer points of its markings are left undescribed here rather than guessed at.
Habitat
The species is native to the Salween River basin, recorded from Mae Hong Son Province in northern Thailand; because the Salween forms part of the Thailand–Myanmar border, its range likely extends into adjacent Myanmar waters as well, though the cached sources do not confirm a specific Myanmar locality. It is a benthopelagic fish of swiftly flowing fresh water, living low in the water column over stony or gravel substrate in clear streams and rivers.
This is a cool-to-mild, well-oxygenated stream environment, not a warm, still one: Loaches Online reports a temperature range of 64–77 °F, a pH of 6.0–7.5, and soft to medium hardness (up to about 12 dH), consistent with the fast, clear headwater and tributary streams typical of Schistura habitat across mainland Southeast Asia.
Feeding
Schistura reidi is a benthic micro-predator, foraging over the streambed for small invertebrates — insect larvae, small crustaceans and other tiny prey items swept along or living among the stones of its fast-flowing home water. Its barbels and downturned mouth are built for probing crevices and sifting gravel rather than grazing algae or biofilm.
In the aquarium it takes sinking pellets along with live and frozen bottom foods such as bloodworm and brine shrimp. As with most Schistura, it is unlikely to reliably find or compete for floating flake, so food needs to reach the substrate where the fish actually forages.
Mating
No courtship or spawning behaviour has been documented for Schistura reidi specifically in the cached sources. The general picture for the genus, per Seriously Fish's Schistura care notes, is that breeding is complex and only sparsely documented across the group as a whole — external sex differences are not well characterised, and there is no established account of pairing or spawning cues, in the wild or in captivity, for this species.
Breeding
Consistent with stone and brook loaches generally, Schistura reidi is an egg-scatterer with no parental care, presumably depositing eggs over gravel or among stones in fast-flowing water — but this is inferred from the biology of its family rather than observed directly, since Loaches Online states plainly that the species is not bred in captivity. Data on its reproductive biology, whether wild or captive, is sparse to the point of being essentially absent from available sources.
Aquarists should not expect to breed this fish at home. As with most Nemacheilidae, any specimens in the trade are wild-collected rather than farm- or tank-produced.
In the aquarium
Schistura reidi needs a setup that mimics a swift, clear, well-oxygenated stream: strong water flow, high dissolved oxygen, and a substrate mixing large pebbles or slate for shelter with smooth rounded stones and sand or fine gravel, kept under bright lighting. Loaches Online reports it does best at 64–77 °F and pH 6.0–7.5 with soft to medium hardness — meaningfully cooler and softer than the warm blackwater conditions suited to many tropical aquarium fish, so it should not be mixed indiscriminately with warm-water community species.
The species is described as territorial and benefits from multiple hiding places that break line of sight between individuals; it can be aggressive toward more delicate tankmates and is best matched with robust, similarly fast-water-adapted fish. Like other nemacheilids it is essentially scaleless, which makes it sensitive to copper-based medications and full-strength treatments generally — half-doses and gentle products are the safer route if disease treatment becomes necessary. Its small adult size (under 4 in) means it doesn't need a large tank, but flow and oxygenation matter far more here than footprint.
Conservation
Schistura reidi is assessed by the IUCN as Least Concern, last evaluated in 2011. FishBase notes it has medium resilience and low vulnerability to fishing pressure, consistent with a species that is not a significant target of commercial fisheries.
As a stream-restricted species known with certainty only from the Salween basin in Mae Hong Son Province, its status is nonetheless tied to the health of that specific watershed; any aquarium specimens available in the trade would be wild-collected rather than captive-bred, since no captive breeding has been documented for the species.