Loaches Online Forum

......quite rightly.











These guys seem to be enjoying their new home a lot.

Martin.

Stunning Mr T, simply stunning

These guys sure are photogenic.
They certainly do look content in the new home.

Lovely!

That one in that first pic looks like he's on a mission! Such concentration on his face!

Emma

They do look pretty cool don't they? Yes Emma...I thought the same. Be determined to procreate dude!

I've added that pic to the profile.

Martin.

I added a coconut shell cave covered in java moss to the river tank this evening. I thought the Schisturas might claim it as theirs, but at the moment, several of the S. lineolata are fluttering around it, seemingly checking it out! There is a lot of activity going on in there tonight amongst both the lineolatas and the spotties.

Emma

I have a small ceramic cave in with mine. As I figured that we can't make assumptions about how these breed, I thought I'd give them a cave in case they're cave spawners.

You only have to look at the Betta family to realize you can't assume anything about a species' breeding habits.

For all I know Sewellia might be paternal mouthbrooders!

Activity always make you hope it means something right? Let's hope so.
Mine seem a bit more layed back today. Yesterday, they were going nuts.

Martin.

Martin Thoene wrote:Yesterday, they were going nuts.

Check your external cannister filter in a few weeks time then!

There isn't one!

Martin.

Martin Thoene wrote:There isn't one!

Martin.

So do you rely upon the sponges on the manifold as your filtration Martin

If so this could be a good thing for me, I have a 36"x14"x18" that I was thinking about using as a river tank, but I thought I had hit upon a snag because where the tank is going to be situated gives good levels of sunlight for good algae growth but no way of attaching an external canister filter so I was wondering if the sponges on the manifold would be enough alone.

Sorry for hijacking the thread Martin

You're not hijacking Mark. It's just a post about pictures of pretty fish. How I keep them has relevance.

There's the two sponges on the R/T manifold, plus three smallish HOB (hang on the back) filters. An Aquaclear Mini, a Topfin 15 and a Penguin 110 with biowheel. This Motley Crue of filters are all remnants from the vast mix of equipment I inherited from Momfish.

HOBs as I recall aren't that popular in GB, but here in the North American continent they're very popular. Relatively cheap and some are pretty powerful. On my Clown tank there's an Aquaclear 500 (now renamed the Aquaclear 110). That shifts 500 gal/hr for around CDN$80, i.e. less than 40 quid.

I've got odd HOB's littered all around my tanks. Some are primary filters, others are just there to keep them biologically active. If ever I need to use one of my spare aquariums, I can stick a cycled filter on it straight away. It's just a case of unplug, lift and move, plug in again. These things mostly start up again automatically after power outages as well and only need about 4 -6" of space behind the tank.

The two small HOBs on the Sewellia tank are working normally. The Penguin has no media, just a filter bag full of Almond leaves.

Actually, the Sewellia tank is the only one of mine that doesn't have a cannister filter on it. There's only 5 fish, so the filtration that's there is probably OTT anyway.

Haven't done it yet, but I am going to place sponges over the intakes on thse filters. Unlike a cannister filter, the first thing a Sewellia fry will encounter in one of these filters is a spinning impeller

Martin.

Thanks Martin, I have been thinking about the layout of my river tank and have come up with slight difference to your river manifold. Quite a few times now when I have been fishing on a local River which is inhabited by a couple of small species of loach, Cobitis Taenia and Neomacheilus Barbatulus they tend to do a lot of feeding and and can be found shoaling in areas that have a strong bottom current but also a fairly strong surface current which pushes any food down and causes an eddy effect in mid/low water.

So the idea I thought of is this (had a little play with the diagram from Emmas recent article I hope nobody minds ):


Either a second powerhead could be used to feed the spraybar or a small internal power filter, but I also thought that on the double outlet of the main powerhead small peacies of plastic pipe which have been flattened or directional nozzles could be used to vary the current direction with the intention of seeing if current deviation could affect breeding habits.

Hey Mark! You're quite the artist. I can't tell where my picture ends and your's starts!

In my 65 River-Tank I have a spray-bar mounted horizontally across the end of the tank.

In the 125 Clown tank there's an R/T manifold with small pumps, but two Rena XP3's exit through horizontal spraybars, so all the water gets pushed in one direction. The spraybars are mounted about 4" from the substrate and 4" from the water surface. Intakes are close to the R/T intake sponges.

Here, they sell rotating versions of that T-piece adaptor you have on the powerhead.....and the outlets are flattened too. You angle the outlets to create a rotational thrust.

Martin.

Cheers Martin, I may well go with that plan then and see what happens, the tank is about 32 gallon maybe a touch more and I was thinking of only getting 6 hillstream loaches. Just cant decide now between Gastro's or Sewelia's I think once I decide it will just be case of getting what ever is available.

You know? If I was going to give advice as to what to keep to a beginner, I would say Gastromyzon. But you're most certainly not a beginner fishkeeper and to be honest, once they get over the traumas of transport, Sewellia are no harder to keep than any other Hillstream, and easier than some.

Depends on how much you have to spend I guess?

Put it this way.....I severely doubt that you'll ever regret owning Sewellia and I bet everyone else that keeps them will concur.

Martin.