New to Yoyos.

[YoyoGirl]

I'm sure you've heard this story before: I had a snail problem. A fellow fish keeper gave me pair of little yoyo loaches and said 'hey these will take care of your snail problem'. They didn't take care of the snails (they're far too little) but I have fallen in love with the wriggly little guys.

At the moment I have 4 (the origional two picked on eachother a bit so I picked up 2 more and they all seem happy now) of them living in a sand bottomed, highly filtered and heavily planted 10G that I use as a grow out tank. I know this is way too small for them BUT they're a little under 2" long and I'm trying to get as much food to the little buggers as possible cause they're so small and young, this seems to be MUCH easier to accomplish in a tank with very minimal competition (in this case only a couple of ottos). The tank has a Penguin 150 on it and tons of little nooks and crannies and caves for them to hide in.

Once they get a little meat on their tiny tiny bones I'm planning to move them into my 30G community tank. Currently I have a small school of black skirt tetras in there and a quartet of cories. (Does any one know if I will have any problems with them and the cories? They have a couple ottos in where they are right now and I haven't had any issues there but I'm thinking that maybe that's cause the ottos are, except for the oldest one, so much smaller then them that they're a non threat).

Again, I know the 30's too small for them in the long run with all those fish in there with them. I am wondering how fast they grow though? I'm not sure how old these little fishes are but based on their size I'm thinking they're still babies.

Down the road the plan is to get a nice 33G long or a 40G breeder for the Yoyos and a pile of plants (I love me my plants). I know plenty of people who keep Yoyos in 30G and 40G community tanks and that seems to be the the consensus here from what I've skimmed that they need more then that. Would a nice long tank like that be sufficent for them if they're on their own down the road?

[Blue]

Yoyos are really fast growers. If memory serves me right, it took only about 3-4 months to grow mine from 1.5 inch to 4 inches. Largest right now is 5 inches or at least close to 6.

The problem with mixing them with cories is they may outstrip the cories' competition for food. These are very boisterous fish and can gorge all the foods before others can even have a go at it. As they mature, expect their patterns to differ. My second batch of yoyos matured with all sporting reticulated patterns. The first and third batch though have those simple patterns, just the Y-O-Y-O at the moment for the third anyway as they are still young.

Get the 40g breeder. There should be enough space for 5-6 in the long run hopefully.

Good luck.

[YoyoGirl]

Yeah I considered that the Cories might get shut out in the food department. As I said it's only a temperary solution though until more space is available for the little guys (or not so little guys as they may be by then).

Maybe the cories can be relocated temperarily into a smaller tank themselves... hrm.

[jones57742]

The problem with mixing them with cories is they may outstrip the cories' competition for food.

Blue:

I have not experienced this problem. The Yoyo's gorge themselves immediately and the cories will spend several hour scavenging the bottom for leftover groceries.

TR

[YoyoGirl]

Good to know!
I supose I'll just keep an eye on it.

[starsplitter7]

I have Cories with Yoyos, and don't have any major problems. However, I feed lots of different foods, and everyone seems to have their favorites.