my weather loaches

[bdeighton]

i abseloutly adore this site! Its good to see lots of people like me appreciate loaches too! I have filmed my 2 weather loaches, a female called loachy whos 8.5 inches and 9yrs old. And a Male called Manfred who is 8 months old. Here is the link for my video http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7kAQ2pba5bQ hope you like, id love to hear any feedback x x

[Graeme Robson]

Superb looking Weather Loaches.

Do you feed them with sinking foods so that the Goldfish cant devour the foods first?

[bdeighton]

Thanks for the lovely comment (my loaches are very happy) In response to your question, i feed a variety of foods including sinking and floating pellets, wafers, flake and a vareity of frozen foods. In recent times i have had to begin dropping a small amount of sinking pellets first to draw my 'naughty fat fish' fan tail (who we have only had for 4 months and has grown rapidly- hence the name!) into the corner and then spreading food around the rest of the tank that all the others share..while greedy scoffs in the corner. How many loaches do you have? x

[soul-hugger]

Great Video.., your little guy looks almost as big as the larger one, at least, if that was him approaching from the right through a hole in the rocks. I love Weather Loaches.., they are my favourite fish. They have so much personality and are fun to care for and watch grow. I have three of the regular brown variety, they are three, six, and seven inches long. But this is just a guess, as I haven't been able to measure them. They are in a 55 Gallon Sub-Tropical tank with Kuhlis, Barbs, and Tetras.

Welcome to the Site!
You will find lots of good, reliable information here, along with great people!
soul-hugger

[bdeighton]

hi soul hugger, glad u liked the video, ive added another one if you would like to see the rest of my fish (as well as the loaches) there is some better footage of Loachy (the bigger one) and manfred (smaller one) Allthough manfred looks a simular size to loachy, she is much bigger and fatter (i love her tho and thinks shes beautiful) have you got any photos of your loaches? what are their names? x

[bdeighton]

oops forgot to post the link! here it is, if interested http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLXbwZNcj4

[bdeighton]

if you want to skip video to just the loach it is 1.36 (mins) i am so happy to know that if i ever need advice, help or share stories that i come here and talk to everyone..thanks

[starsplitter7]

Looks like you have a beautiful tank and happy relaxed fish. If you do a search on my nickname you can find lots of pictures of my fish. For the most part, I don't name my fish, because I have so many I couldn't keep track of the names.

When feeding I do what you do. I put food in the corner to try to get the greedy ones distracted. I have eels, and I put blood worms in floating plants to give them a chance to pluck them out, before the greedy ones, gobble them down.

In another tank I have a larger eel, and I feed her first, because she will eat all the food in the tank, if I don't distract her. She is really fast and loves to eat. I am very careful that she doesn't bite me in her enthusiasm. she will eat from my fingers and so will my ropefish.

By far my piggiest fish are a group of Golden Wonder Killies. They will gobble down whole shrimp pellets. They will nudge me if I put my hands in the water. They enthusiastically eat everything in the tank.

[bdeighton]

[b]Hi guys! I'm not sure if you can provide any answers but I'm stumped i really need your advice. Im concerned about My weather loach who's over 9 years old. For the past few days i've noticed she hasn't been her usual active self and in between swimming around into tight spirals, she just sits, and leans on her side at the bottom of the tank. Or even upside down! Her dorsal fin is laying to one side and her eye has seemed to greyed but not with a slime or obvious disease.. But this has been happening for some time and i thought that this was a cataract or some thing simular??

The water is fine and the remainder of the fish seem content, so what could it be? It seems like my other weather loach is protecting her and chasing the other big fish away.
Any suggestions, particularly if your loach has displayed the same symptoms? im really worried x x x
Loach Girl :p[/b]

[Tinman]

Sounds like your fish are growing but your tank is not. You should increase the water changes as your fish grow( you state you had some young fish)
Do several small water changes over the next few hours and see if that helps. Your fish is already stressed so I am not a fan of one large change because of that alone being stressful but others disagree sometimes....
IME the larger fish shows the signs as this distress before the smaller fish. Do you have a test kit ? and if so do you use it so you know how your tank is typically?
Goldys are pretty dirty and as they grow so does the waste and then tank conditions deteriorate so maintenance must be increased proportionally....TM

I hate it when old friends get sick too.....

[bdeighton]

Thanks for the advice but im certain the water is fine. I havent tested it for a couple of months but last time i did it was perfect as it always is ( thats the reason i dont test it regualry anymore) I recently reduced the number of water changes ( about a quarter tank each week, i do it this frequently as i know that goldfish are messy fish ) as loachy had lightened in colour and someone advised me that this may be the result of too frequent water changes. Since then loachy has darkened in colour and looks in general good health. This current change has happened quite rapidly and began shortly after a water change. My filtration system is working perfectly and is sufficent for a tank of twice the size of ours (which is 1.25m by 300mm by 450mm-plenty big enough for the fish i have) Im just scared coz she's acting really wierd..im lookin at her now and she actually looks abserloutly fine, just laid on the bottom chillin like she usually does but when she goes up to take a gulp of air she twists around like she doesnt know which way is up or down! I'll dig my test kit out and do a partial water change just to be on the safe side..thanks for your help but ANY other thoughts would be much appreciated please x x

[ALX]

I'm sorry your loach is not doing well
I'm sure you will get some good advice if you post your problem in the Fish Health and Treatment forum. It may be missed by a lot of helpfull members if you just keep posting here. Good Luck!

please copy and paste the following along with your answers into a post in the Fish Health and Treatment Forum. This will help the other forum members to build up a picture of what is happening in your tank and will aid in a more prompt diagnosis and treatment recommendation: Good Luck!

* Type of fish that are affected (common name and latin name if possible - common names vary worldwide, latin names don't!).
* How long has the tank been set up for?
* Size of tank (dimensions and volume).
* How is the tank being filtered?
* Water temperature.
* Your maintenance regime (e.g. how often water changes are carried out, what percentage of the water is changed each time, how often you clean your filter/s and how do you do this?)
* Has anything new been added to the tank recently? (fish, plants, live food, decor etc).
* What other fish are in the tank?
* As detailed a description as possible of the symptoms the fish are exhibiting (remember a photograph can speak a thousand words).
* How long ago the affected fish were added to the tank, and how long the fish have been displaying symptoms.
* Your current water parameters - ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH (please don't say 'my water is fine, the levels are ok', we would like actual numbers from the test results).