Loaches Online Forum

I have mine with Eco Complete, and it seems to be OK for them. They can't bury in it, but they haven't had any problems with scrapes or barbel problems. I changed the substrate about 6 months ago to Eco-Complete, and they seem happy.

I used to raise snails for my puffers. Basically, lots of food and weekly water changes will help them breed. You don't really need filtration, but something like an airstone or small filter will help. Some people change the water using old tank water from another tank. I never found this necessary....

Concerning the hidey clowns, there are a couple of suggestions: - Make sure there is a cave at each end of the tank for them (and one somewhere in the middle if it's a really long tank). They like to know they have somwhere to escape wherever they are in the tank. - Rearrange their caves slightly. A...

I only have one skunk (I think there's only one) left from a group I had. The others had some nasty worm parasite, and one turned out to be another kind of loach (possibly B. splendida) :( Mine have always been pretty good tankmates, with B. modesta, B. kubotai, angelfish, swordtails and some plecos...

One thing some people suggest is to make sure there's a cave at each end of the tank (and some in the middle too, if it's a long tank), so they know they can run for cover, if necessary. I've found my clowns change behaviour whenever I move them to another tank. Then they change again when I redecor...

How about a clump of clowns?

I think what your fish are experiencing is a low amount of dissolved oxygen, which comes from a combination of the high heat and the medication. I generally don't think it's a good idea to mix medicines with the heat/salt treatment. Personally, I haven't had good results with salt/heat treatments fo...

I'd say it's another reason not to impulse buy fish! Whenever I go on a fish expidition to another town, I always go with a cooler to prevent temp. fluctuations for any fish I may happen to pick up. While many fish stores will give you a shipping styrofoam box if you ask, not all have them handy. On...

We have a stump decoration that the loaches loved, but some of the "roots" were too narrow. Even when we took the decoration out, we had to shake it to get the loaches out, which led us to believe the tubes were too narrow for them to easily come out. We siliconed the small openings closed, so no mo...

Have you checked your water parameters? Changing your filter can cause nitrite or ammonia spikes.

I had a disease with similar symptoms in my loach tank. In the end, it wiped out all but one of my loaches (there had been nine). I don't know what it was, but the clowns would have an open mouth, but otherwise look fine. A few days later, the ones with the open mouths were dead. The mouths on mine ...

Cool video and pics

I noticed in your video the kubotais don't seem to grey out like yoyos or clowns do when they squabble. Now I'm trying to remember if I have ever seen my kubotais greyed out.

Acrylic tanks stand up better in a largish earthquake, if you live in an area that frequently gets them.

When treating, I always estimate the volume of the gravel, decorations and plants and remove from the total. I think in a 150g tank you would have at least 20g volume of gravel, etc. Of course, this would only be a slight overdose. Usually if there is a nitrite or ammonia spike it's only temporary a...

Make sure you have the tank extremely well covered. Put some kind of mesh over any holes it could possibly jump out of. I had one jump out of a tank that was fairly well covered, but obviously not covered enough.