At noon today, I noticed that our dojo loaches were behaving oddly. After a few moments of observation, I realized that they were spawning!
Supposedly, dojo loaches don't spawn easily in aquaria. I'll list here the conditions that led to the spawn, in case anyone is curious, and later on I have a few questions that I hope someone can help with.
Two weeks ago today, we moved the 44-gallon, completely emptying it and setting it up again. At the same time, we merged all the dojos. The temperature of the water is at 73 degrees, which was cooler than the females were used to. The pH is at 6.5, the Nitrite is 0 ppm, Nitrate is ~30 ppm, and the phosphate level is somewhat high at 5 ppm. We've been feeding them bloodworms and Hikari meat pellets as a matter of course.
The male and the female separated off the bottom of the tank and swam about at mid- to high- levels in the water column. The male swam with his mouth and barbels all but touching the female, right behind her gill cover or slightly farther back, by her pectoral fins. They would swim like this for about ten seconds, when the male would wrap himself around her pelvic fin region, and she would scatter about 20 eggs in a burst. The eggs adhere to any surface, especially to the small leaves of the artificial plants. (see picture--look closely!) The breeding pair would go back to the bottom of the tank, then repeat the behavior about thirty seconds to a minute later. I'm not sure exactly when they started, but they continued this spawning behavior for at least twenty minutes. The other loaches in the tank became agitated during the whole process, especially the males. One or two of the other males would attempt to rise with the female, but they would give up before more than three seconds passed.
The female and male that spawned were the oldest fish in the tank. Both are a little over two years old. The male has natural dojo loach coloration, while the female is a so-called "golden" dojo.
This leads me to my several questions. First and foremost, does anyone have any experience with dojo loach fry? We are setting up a 20-gallon fry tank, where we will transfer the plants containing the eggs. We've got a sponge filter and will attempt to feed the newly-hatched loaches baby brine shrimp. As a backup, we have Hikari Firstbites fish food.
Secondly, does anyone know anything about dojo loach genetics? I would assume that the natural coloration would win out over the golden coloration, but I'm curious as to what the fry might look like.
Thank you for any help you can give!
Whilst this old thread does not detail the actual spawning, it may be of interest to you: 
Thanks for sharing!
