Loaches Online Forum

Hi there! I just bought two little baby Black Khulis! After some research I found they would work well in my tank. (A 20 gallon soon to be 37 with a little Blood Parrot, Betta couple, and some small feeder fish I keep to feed to my Oscars who are in another tank.) I was wondering if there is a trick to getting them to come out and play more often?

Hi Sarahrah89 and a big welcome to Loaches Online, By nature Khulis prefer to hide most of the time and in their natural habitat are found in large numbers under leaf litter in calmer areas. This would be to prevent being eaten by larger predators and lots of other Loaches also behave in this way and hide most of the time. My daughter has twelve in her tank and the most I have seen out at one time was three but it is usually only one or two.
There is things you can do to help entice them out more like subdued lighting, schools of small "dither" fish to help them feel safer, no large aggressive tankmates and having the tank in a quiet traffic free place.
Some one posted a great idea a while ago (Donna I think) where they had a piece of glass that was on little legs about half an inch from the substrate and her khulis gathered under it and she could still see them all. They did not seem worried that the glass was clear. I will see if I can find it and post a link.
Cheers Graeme.

You can see Donna's glass shelf idea on page 2 of this thread.
http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17916
Cheers Graeme.