Loaches Online Forum

Those are beautiful plants.i only have one house plant growing in my clown loach fish tank, I definitely could use more. My 72 gallon tank would be perfect for emerged plants, but my cats climb it, so I am hesitant to add more things that attract them :) they already use it as a personal water bowl....

Thanks, I will give romaine a try... They were not too wild about zucchini... Oh the things we do for our pets...
I blame my addiction on our retired neighbor, when I was 10, he gave me a 5 gallon fish tank with couple catfishes and swordtails...

Well, my sword looks good because it only been in my aquarium for one week, always optimistic that it will grow faster then loaches eat it. So, we'll see how long this one lasts... :) Two mother swords are helping me to keep nitrates under control in addition to frequent water changes. I am feeding ...

A little better shots from today...

I am going to take all media from one of existing filters and add it to new filter that should be arriving next week + sponge filter is going to quarantine set up , it should have enough bacteria to handle new fish, and I will do daily tests and small daily water changes to keep water fresh. I can a...

Pictures came out pretty dark tonight.... This is a clown loach tank: http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh589/olesjak/image_zpsbexnlagl.jpeg http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh589/olesjak/image_zpsbyyhuqcg.jpeg Weather loaches: http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh589/olesjak/image_zpskwygeoun...

Thanks for your response, Nancy! I have 20 and 10 gallon tank available for temporary housing. Probably not the most ideal size, but I am thinking 1 month or 2 if loaches are looking good with a lot of water changes. I also have couple sponge filters and a lot of media that I can can use to cycle ne...

Almost every time I bought new loaches, they ended up being sick and by the time i started treatment, i lost some... And based on what I've read over the years, looks like trend is to have some preventive treatment for new loaches regardless if they show any signs of illness. But I do understand you...

Thanks, for a quick response, Diana! Would you recommend this for all fish I will get, I was thinking about adding couple torpedo barbs and/or ottos? I might just work on getting loaches and adding some other fish as another stage #2? Unless the same treatment could be beneficial for all...

Hi everybody, it's been some time since I have added new fish to my tank. And, I am wondering if anybody has a quarantine routine they can recommend when buying new clown loaches. Destination tank - 225 gallon with 4 large to XL clown loaches that been with me for over 10 years, 7-8 rainbows, pleco ...

Thanks everybody for input, I do feel that I need to crash course in chemistry to digest all of this... I guess, my approach to this will be keep testing water including TDS meters and use trend rather then numbers to evaluate water quality... Also, monitor kh to avoid ph crashes... I added a lot of...

Thanks everybody for comments, With testing Nitrates before and after water change, I do see the decrease with all 3 tests I am using (API, Nutrafin and Elos). But API is harder to measure because it goes from 10 to 20 to 40 ... So unless I am making 50% water change, it will be hard to quantify cor...

Hi Loachloach, I can't disagree with TDS usefulness, it's very handy and easy to use tool that I've been relying on for a while as a rough water quality reference and as a guide for my water changes. And, especially when acclimating new fish, my little loaches that came from LFS have been in water w...

Hi astex, yes, all tests are up to date, just confirmed expiration dates.
Also, with API tests I have read comments that bottle #2 needs to be really vigorously shaken for more then 1 minute... I have done that as well, same result

Okay, so after getting a bigger house for my loaches (http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24921), I was hoping to have a better handle on nitrates, but I think they creeping up on me again... (sigh) Anybody has an opinion on how reliable API test are? I am getting 20-40 reading using API t...