Loaches Online Forum

I recently got 6 Pseudogastromyzon myersi in my Hillstream tank (look in freshwater section). They had a few dominance fights and also dug quite a few holes for spawning. The problem is, I have sand and in other places gravel with about 8 - 12mm grain size. The gravel is too heavy for them to dig and spawn in, and the sand is very fine, so it easily closes the hole again.

Now what I want to know is if the sand is fine for them to spawn in. Will the eggs/fry survive in the sand and will they be able to come out? It's normal pool filter sand. there's currently 3 holes in the tank, the one they spawned in has already closed up.

Will it be fine or should I try to replace the sand with coarser gravel of about 3 - 4mm grain size?

Regards,
Danelle

Why not get some shallow kitchen plastic containers and put various sized gravel in them, and bury them in the areas where they were trying to spawn. Then the fish will have various size gravel to chose from.

Due to the infrastructure in the tank, meaning the large rocks and the piping, it would be hard to do that. I don't have a lot of open substrate space. If I buy larger grain gravel then I will replace all of the sand though.