the Return of the Loach

[rivka]

I posted this on another forum, but since you are loachy people here, I thought I would reprise it:

I have a strange tale to tell...

A few months ago I added 3 Botia lohachata (yo yo loaches) to my 10 gallon tank. Two of them acclimated readily, but the third "greyed out," wriggled into a small crevice between a smooth stone and the glass and stayed there for several hours. Over the next few days it moved around a little but mostly could be found wedged in the same small crevice. Then it seemed to disappear. It took me a day or two to notice, the tank is heavily planted with lots of hiding places and with fast moving fish it can be difficult to keep track of them all, but after two days of no appearance I was pretty certain that the third wasn't about any more. I moved the bogwood and stones around and looked among the plants as best I could, but there was no sign of any corpse, I also checked the filter intake and resevoir. The tank is tightly covered, so in the end I assumed that the loach had died and been consumed by its tankmates before I could find the corpse. My fish guy at the LFS assured me that this was a possibility with loaches. Since the fish had seemed sluggish from the moment I got him home, I figured it was probably just bad luck and since the other two were thriving, I went ahead and replaced it.

Now the weird part, more than a month passes, it is now more than 6 weeks since the loach disappeared and I have decided to rescape my tank. Among other things, I changed the orientation of a piece of bogwood so that it was facing upwards instead of down. As I flipped it over, I saw that one of the loaches was wedged deep into a crack on the underside. I assumed he had darted in there to hide when I started messing about the tank, but I stoked him lightly with my finger just to make sure he wasn't stuck or injured. He wiggled in his crack and seemed okay, so I left him alone. When I checked back a few minutes later, he was gone. I finished scaping, refilled the tank and settled down with a smoke and a coffee to watch how my fish enjoyed their new environment. Wow, I thought, my loaches are really all over the place now... first here, then there... they move quickly and like to dart among the leaves of plants, so it took a few minutes to realize, I have FOUR of them now!

So there it is, the mystery of the missing loach. I've run it over in my head a million times, but there is NO WAY that that loach has been free swimming in my tank since it disappeared. I watch my fish a lot and count them daily, no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I somehow overlooked one for such a long time, it simply isn't credible. Especially since they are very active feeders and never miss the opportunity to swarm an algae pellet. All four of them are the same size and exhibit the same colouring and behaviour, none of them seems to be more retiring or shy than the others. I can only conclude that one of my loaches spent well over a month trapped in a crack in a log with no apparent ill effects. I've heard some crazy stories about loaches wedging themselves into tight places, but for me, this really takes the cake. To quote Sherlock Holmes, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

[grizzlyone]

You know that they do that just to drive us crazy, right?

Kevin

[newshound]

ya loaches are fun.
make sure you check out what is written on this site about your loaches.
Get a much larger tank ASAP. Ten gallons are so unstable and small.
over filter
under stock
50% weekly water changes

[MoonPye]

Slightly off topic comment here, but my bettas have always done things like the loaches too, cannot tell you how many times I couldn't find mine in a 55 gallon, or thought one was dead until I poked him and then realized I really annoyed him.. ... I guess I just like the prankster fish.

[andre]

I have a kubotai that used to disappear for days. We couldn't understand where he was hiding until we spotted him in the filter which used to be few centimeters above the tank.

He easily managed to move from the tank to the filter and back despite the little waterfall he had to climb.

[MoonPye]

[quote="andre"]I have a kubotai that used to disappear for days. We couldn't understand where he was hiding until we spotted him in the filter which used to be few centimeters above the tank.

He easily managed to move from the tank to the filter and back despite the little waterfall he had to climb.

[quote]

Oh my Andre that is hilarious! Thanks for sharing that pic!!

[MoonPye]

I have no idea what happened to my quote within a quote there.