Loaches Online Forum

I can definitely see the resemblance as well. :D As Glenna points out, there seems to be a pattern of design that repeats itself not only in nature, but is also reflected in our own designs. The purpose is the same, but nature did it first. My boyfriend recently returned from a collecting trip in Bo...

Hi Katy.., How often do you clean your filter? Sometimes a tank can be "too clean." Nitrates build up as the nitrogen cycle completes itself, also with the accumulation of organic material. The more plants you have, the faster the cycle will go through its phases as the plants use up available nutri...

Very Nice!

After having had Rainbows, I know how hard they can be to photograph. They are always on the move and often photos fail to capture their true colour. Excellent job with these ones:)

Rainbows are a fish whose beauty tends to increase with age. These are going to be lovely.

soul-hugger

I had some large Apple Snails, and my Botia Histrionica ate them. They were huge, and I thought for sure they were large enough not to become a meal... I was wrong. The Botia took them out and then the other Loaches joined on the feeding frenzy. I wouldn't worry too much about the larger snails with...

Love the picture! I have to say it even beats my Loach Pile picture. Are they trying to camouflage? Sometimes I wonder how Loaches stay resting in some of the positions they get into.

soul-hugger

I'm not sure if this will affect you in the US, but all the stores in my area have stopped selling Hikari. Apparently there are new regulations keeping it from coming in. I'm not sure of the exact details, but some distributors in Canada have decided to stop selling it. Just wanted to give you a hea...

Sometimes the snails will come in on plants. A few is all it takes to start a population. Next time you go to the pet store, look on the plants to see if you can see some; the store might just give them to you. If you have any friends nearby who have aquariums, or if you are in an aquarium society, ...

There are 2 Schistura Mahnerti in my 55 Gallon tank. I have had them for over a year, and they are now adults, close to 3" long each from tip to tip. When they were younger, they seemed to enjoy one another's company, but now that they are older, they have divided up the territory in the tank, one u...

ROFL!!!

They were named when I got them, but I still found it kinda neat. Hopefully they won't take after their namesakes....

soul-hugger

Hi, Clint.., What beautiful pictures these are! I could imagine they would be hard to capture on camera, being such an active fish. I saw these at an LFS once, and they have been on my wish list ever since. Unfortunately, they were priced at $57 Canadian per fish, making them out of my reach. I was ...

I agree with Clint that carbon should not be used as a band-aid. I have also stopped using it regularly. When I do use it, it's more for cosmetic reasons than anything else. If the water starts to lose its clarity or gets too yellow from tannins in the wood, it works like a charm to clear things up ...

My Sids sometimes get overfed. I have three of them, named Sid, Nancy, and Johnny. Nancy is smaller than Sid and Johnny, and when I first got them she was pretty thin. Depending on what I feed, they sometimes over-gorge themselves. Mostly I think it's because the Sids are so mobile compared to some ...

Another congrats on setting up your new tank! :D It seems that no matter how you do something, you always wonder if you could have done it better, chosen differently, etc. Like Clint says, you will settle in eventually, and so will your fish. Then you will be happy to have the extra space. I'm not s...

Moss balls will be fine. My daughter has one in her tank, and though she does nothing with it, it has thrived and even grown. Her tank is just a simple 10 Gallon with an incandescent light, she does not fertilize, and provides no special care. After the first year, it had grown and started to lose i...

I'm sorry to hear that your Shrimp died.:( I have never seen this before but my boyfriend has. He says they always die if they can't get out of their old skin. Some of them just have a problem molting. If you try to help pull the skin off, you will kill it. I'm not sure if there's any way this can b...