Loaches Online Forum

I ended up purchasing a wonderful marineland set up with the LED's moon lights in 55G. Its not my expectation to keep my loaches till they are full grown as the 48 inch long tank will no doubt be outgrown one day. BUT I love it. I only have the two yoyos, the two clowns and the zebra. All little ones today. And a betta and a few cory cats. I love it! I hope the plants do well in with the LEDS that will have to be waited on. The filter is a HOB but is the marineland with the dual bio wheels and also stuffed with Fluval marshmallows in front of the filter. All the residents seem to be delighted with their new digs! I am trying to stay away from flaked food since I just give my betta two pellets a day and then a sinking algae wafer. I do have a questions, is the algae wafer enough for the little loaches.... they and the cats love them but they also like the really small regualar sinking wafers that have more to them than just algae. What do you think? I will send some pics soon. Oh ya.... the old tank? My 20G long now houses my sons 5 mystery snails and his little cardinal tetras, neons and 4 little cherry barbs. It looks great too by the way with the T5 lighting, with the awesome ACI HO bulbs, the blue and the white blue (forgot their names but the yrock in that 20G long!

hooperman42 wrote:What do you think?

LEDs usually produce quite a bit less light per watt than HO T5s (while standard T5s with electronic ballasts are probably the most efficient lights per cost in the long term, at the moment), so you should keep that in mind with regards to plants. Blue is relatively ok for growing plants under, but moonlighting in the evenings may encourage algae growth, so it might be a good idea to watch those total light hours closely.

As for the fish, I strongly recommend that you increase the schools to at least 6, and where possible to 10-15 (unlikely for the 3 loach species). For my reasoning on why schooling fish should be kept in schools, see http://aquariumadventure.wordpress.com/ ... h-numbers/