I've been lurking for a bit and have found a lot of great advice here, but have now de-lurked to ask for advice. I've got 10 black kuhli loaches (P. oblonga) that have been in quarantine for about a month. They've been doing well, good appetite, no signs of disease, and seem to be growing. They've got a sand substrate and lots of hiding places (leaf litter and caves) but they spend most of their time zooming about or lounging on the sand. Long story short, they seem happy and healthy and ready to move out of quarantine.
Before moving them, I'd like to set up a tunnel system under the sand in their new home. I'm posting this to request any advice on the tunnel design. My basic idea is to use 1 or 1.5 inch diameter PVC pipe in 3 segments. The left and right segments will run along the sides of the tank, and a rear segment will join them via 90 degree elbows. Because the sand is deeper in the rear, the side segments will be partially buried and the 2 entrances will be at the front. The rear will be buried a couple inches deep. Looking down from above it'll look something like this (the "e" represents each entrance):
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- Would prefer a large or small diameter pipe? I was planning on 1" or 1.5" diameter PVC but could change that.
- Would they like to have some "dead end" tunnels linked in to the system? That'd be easy to do, there's room under the sand
- Would they like to have a fatter portion of the tunnel for the group to gather? Again, probably easy to add if I can find a PVC adapter.
- Might they like some gentle water flow through the tunnel?
- Will my malaysian trumpet snails move in and take over the space? Any way to discourage that?
- I might slant the tunnel slightly so that debris will tend to move toward the front and out of the entrance, any problem with this?