Loaches Online Forum

Hey ya'll,
Some questions for those of you who have kept Homaloptera tweediei. What did you feed them?

from an earlier thread I found (from Martin Thoene)

Homaloptera tweediei are a very visual hunter and need movement in their prey. They will feed on such things as brine shrimp or even individual bloodworm floating in the current will attract them. They'll hunt fish fry too. Unlike other Homaloptera such as orthogoniata, they won't in my experience show a great interest in frozen lumps of food or sinking pellets.
In other words they're not a taste/smell food finder.....they're hunters.

Does this mean they will go after small fry in the upper regions of a tank?
Will they eat small red cherry shrimp? That would be good as I have bazillions of these things and I'm not even trying to breed them.

The tank they will go in after QT currently gets fed dry food in the morning (flake/shrimp tablets/sinking carnivore tabs) and either live or frozen food at night. I put the frozen cubes in a small dish with water from the tank to thaw the bloodworms/shrimp/plankton/whatever and then dump it all at once in front of the powerhead. Which makes it fly everywhere in the tank.

The tank is a 55gal with a 20gal (high) attached via a bridge. The 55 has a XP3 and a aquaclear 110 for filtration and a Hydor Koralia 2 powerhead. The 20 has an aquaclear 20, CO2 injection and I add liquid fertilizer. There is a wimpy little pump that pushes the water from the 20 to the 55 (causing a slight current towards the 20 in the bridge). There are many hiding places.
In the tank(s)
9 yo-yos
8 tiger barbs
4 Beaufortia kweichowensis
2 Gastromyzon ctenocephalus (I think - could be a similair species)
1 Stiphon goby
8 emperor tetras (which mostly hang out in the 20gal)
1 gold gourami (again likes the 20gal - much less flow??)
many red cherry shrimp and some ghost shrimp
1 Atya gabonensis
10 Khulis

40% water change/week nitrates <20. T =77-78F. The filters are cleaned every three weeks on a rotating basis. Very stable.
The hillstreams have been in there and doing very well for more than 1.5 years.
One picture (its a bit more overgrown at the moment):



I have a group of Homaloptera tweediei coming in the mail next week. My current QT/fry tank is a 20long stuffed with plant clippings and moss. currently in this tank are a few month (or so)- old blue rams (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi) which I would prefer not to get eaten... I could set up a 10gal for the fry if they would be in danger. Whaddaya think?


Thanks,
Batch

Hi Batch,

I have the similar species H. smithi, they are great hunter. See this small movie:

Homaloptera smithi They are catching living brine shrimps.

Bye,
Thomas

Fantastic video Thomas. Thanks for posting it.

Yes, that is a great video!! I think that says it all.
Both smithi and tweediei will probably eat anything that moves that is in the right size range. I had some in with breeding cheni and L. disparis before and I did notice a decrease in the fry numbers for awhile, but then the numbers came back up. I wonder if bloodworms and brine shrimp taste better. I presently have one in with breeding shrimp and while it is probably feeding on the tiny shrimplets, its not eating enough to control the population.

I like the video. I'm guessing that they'll do fine with the (thawed) frozen food in the current, plus b-weekly or more live food. They'll also have plenty of shrimplets to snack on.

BTW my stiphon feeds almost exactly like that.

Cheers,
Batch

They've arrived and so far so good. (I got a group of 6). They have been eating live blackworms and daphnia... Haven't tried anything else yet.
I'll take some pics of these guys and post them at some point.

Batch

Batch, my Tweedi will eat eartworm flake when moveing in the current.