Do hillstream loaches sift through sand?

[NancyD]

My worms crawl up the sides of the clear plastic container & I can see them but they're tiny. They are in oatmeal & water, ~1 Tablespoon of oatmeal & 1/4 inch of water. The lid has a small hole stuffed with a piece of sponge to let air in.

Your small gastro looks like he's grown. He looks fatter & his head looks bigger in proportion to his body, more bristles too. Maybe that's just how they grow or the angle of the pic.

[Loachloach]

There's no worms crawling at all. I think my culture is totally toast

Your small gastro looks like he's grown. He looks fatter & his head looks bigger in proportion to his body, more bristles too. Maybe that's just how they grow or the angle of the picture

Although I never took a before similar angle picture , I've been seeing him in person and I was actually quite shocked myself to see him that fat. So I honestly think he's gotten fat Now I am worried that there isn't that many worms left but the tank is now covered in algae. The stones are getting visibly green and there's algae on the sides as well. Some of the loaches were munching on it eagerly yesterday.

Also, the smallest guy that I purchased the latest is doing well despite the LFS guy mopping the floor with him at first He's really tiny. I must take a picture of him but he's about a quarter of the biggest loaches I have. I wrongly thought he's a G, Scitulus but he's definitely G. Ctenocephalus. He's so cheeky. When he gets chased away from stones he just hides on the side of the stone and then pops up again the moment the other loach is gone. The other loaches just give up on him and let him eat.

[Loachloach]

I saw a hitchhiker shrimp in the tank. I hope its just one or soon I'll have hundreds of them. They breed like rabbits.

[NancyD]

Or maybe the hillys will eat some shrimplets? Do your beaufortia eat them?...seems like they might, like brine shrimp on the hoof so to speak

[Loachloach]

I doubt it the beaufortia eat any of the shrimplets. If they do, it's so little, there's no impact to the population....as it could be seen on some early photos here

[Loachloach]

I just thought it's been a whole month since I got the loaches. It feels less than that.
I haven't had much chance to observe them the last week but I am keeping an eye on the food and it keeps disappearing. There's no more poop either. I saw bits of it at some stage. It disappeared too. I have a pre-filter sponge on the external so it is not going there for sure...It's worm magic

The worms have learnt to hide when there's no food but once I drop some pellets they stick out from under the stones. There are not as many but they are still there and not decimated. Are the eating all the food?....I don't know but loaches are sifting more and more and to me it seems it's either part of their natural behaviour or they're rather fast learners because they know how to sift same way as corydoras do throwing sand out of their gills. That's now two species of hillstream loaches doing the same thing.

I also wanted to mention that the smallest of the loaches which seems to be a baby loach, the same loach that fell on the floor when I was buying him, is doing rather well. I haven't gone into detail about him yet as I wasn't sure he'd make it but it seems he will/is making it. His entire tail looked like it was skinned from the accident when the LFS guy was trying to pick him up from the floor. It slowly but surely colored back up and the damage seems gone. He still doesn't have a blue tail. I don't know if it is because of the accident or because he's rather young. The positive is that he also looks fat and healthy, at least to me.

Algae wise, I've grown a humongous amount of it, all kinds. For the first time ever I see green slimy algae in my tanks. I've never ever had that before and I don't even know what it is. I rather like it but the algae has destroyed my plants. I might pull the anubias out as it will never do well in a tank like this and I've never seen a loach on any of its leaves, although they're rather big

[NancyD]

It probably doesn't seem very long since you were so worried about finding food they'd eat. I think they'd be losing weight if they were not eating for a month. The small 1 has definitely gotten fatter

I hope your "slimy green" algae isn't cyanobacteria also called blue green alga. It has a distinctive smell if you haven't had it before. Nobody eats it.

Maybe it's because it's spring, but 1 of my gastros is being quite pushy against sewellias of all sizes & both sexes. It's showing blue in the tail too, I haven't seen that for a long while

[Loachloach]

I hope your "slimy green" algae isn't cyanobacteria also called blue green alga

No, I think it definitely isn't cyano. Unfortunately I've had cyano outbreaks before and know the look This is some sort of algae that looks like fine green moss.

Maybe it's because it's spring, but 1 of my gastros is being quite pushy against sewellias of all sizes & both sexes. It's showing blue in the tail too, I haven't seen that for a long while

I don't know if all of mine have blue tails but I've see quite a few blue tails. Or at least the dominant loaches do because the ones I see around chasing each other have bright blue tails. However, the dorsal is blue only on some I think.

I think they'd be losing weight if they were not eating for a month. The small 1 has definitely gotten fatter

Yes, one month is sort of the time limit I used to observe new ottos for. If they last that long, then they normally last for years. But the tank now has green algae on the stones and on the sides. Sadly it looks black on the blue plastic, lol but fish have natural food to graze on.

[Loachloach]

I had a funny loach moment today....

I turned off the filter to drop some pellets at the strategic black worm location. I was looking around the algae growing everywhere, also my emergent pot with plants and then I see two eyes and a blue tail looking at me from inside the plant pot, lol. The loach has climbed in and set house among the crypts..He was so funny because he looked like a puppy getting caught stealing food

The pot holds a peace lily and is hanging from the side of the tank...I guess it's a good hiding place but I now have to be very careful at water changes not to dry a loach out, lol. The loaches are doing ok, they look quite round and strong, some of the stones have very tick layer of mixes of algae and I keep dropping NLS pellets. Unfortunately, my sand is also turning green I think I need to slow down on the light a bit now....

[Loachloach]

I went to my local shop today. They've got more hillstream loaches. They're a completely different type and nothing like the species I've seen....The only thing that stopped me was the two dead ones in the same tank....I am going to ask Google now what they are...They could be pseudogastromyzon myersi. They look very similar to the below, only that I didn't see any coloured fins...Any ideas if they'd get on with the Gastromyzons I have?

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/ps ... on-myersi/

For anyone that has read my long boring posts, I mentioned how one my beaufortia hillstreams eats pellets upside down while stuck on the glass. I took a video...He/she eats that way every day....The front glass is his/her territory normally so he/she doesn't bother getting off it when I drop NLS pellets and just checks out if any have fallen near the glass...

https://youtu.be/2ObG_77Dy64

[Loachloach]

Well, today I finished work earlier and decided to go back to the shop to see if any of the hillstream loaches survived. 3 of them were still there munching on the glass....I came home with them....Pictures to follow. I am not sure what they are actually, couldn't find an exact picture online. They're a slimmer species, perhaps pseudo gastromyzon as I thought before.

I put them in the tank and dropped some NLS pellets straight away. The poor things went for the pellets immediately...within seconds....

They got chased a bit by the older crew around the stones, so perhaps a few territories will be challenged...The G.Ctenocephalus seem to be very bossy in their old tank

One of the new loaches, although lively and eating, seems to have some sort of white patch...or it could be the top fin giving me that idea, not sure. It doesn't look like an infection as in columnaris and such, in case it crossed someone's mind...but I can't see it well so not sure. Fingers crossed some water changes will help and I don't wipe out all of them with some disease...No quarantine....

Also, to mention an odd issue, I have some sort of a midge larvae/fly infestation in the tank for the last few weeks...Not sure what they're are and where they breed but the adult flies are tiny and white...Funny though that they're avoiding all my other tanks except for this one...I read that they love algae..

And the funny part, when I went to the shop I asked the owner(who pretty much does everything) to bag me some hillstream loaches, he was quite puzzled and said he doesn't have any....I pointed to the fish and he said he's not quite sure they're hillsteam loaches because the ones he normally gets are the "wide body" type and what he got this time was different(he orders them just as hillstream loaches and gets different ones every time).....So let's hope I did buy hillstream loaches and not some unidentified monster fish

[Diana]

There are some slender Loaches that also inhabit fast running streams, so would also use the common name 'Hillstream Loaches'.
Have a look at this one!
https://www.loaches.com/species-index/jinshaia-sinensis

[Loachloach]

Thanks Diana. I hope they are not that type of loach

They look more like this below:

[Loachloach]

I think that what I bought may be Pseudogastromyzon Fangi. They look very similar, only mine do not have coloured dorsal fins. It's either I have some sort of variation or the loaches are still stressed and not showing colours, not sure but besides that mine look very similar, if not the same to that picture in the link below.

http://www.aquariumphoto.dk/index.php/c ... gi-1-15931

What I noticed so far is that although the new loaches quite like to hang around the sand, they do not sand sift like my other hillstream loaches. They resemble otocinclus more than hillstream loaches in the way they eat. Also, they seem to like hanging out together so the 3 of them stay sort of near each other and aren't as territorial towards each other as the Gastromyzon.

[NancyD]

Those are quite handsome, whatever yours turn out to be. Are they eating well?