Loaches Online Forum

Are these the same except for size? Would they live together OK? seen a small bristlenose pleco which I have taken to.

I would not try it.


Firstly, the fishes come from different areas. Especially many L numbers like hot temperatures, loaches rather avoid.


But more importanly, an Ancistrus (from Paraguay, that is ideal is 23 C) will eat a whole algae cover, with all the little animals in it, and might even scrape a bit of the wood underneath. You hillsteam loach might not eat the algae, but it will most certainly eat the little animals among them.

Which, in a tank with Ancistrus, will have been eaten by this Ancistrus.


Competition might be good, but you better avoid unfair competition in your tank

So the pleco would be dominant towards the hillstream loaches? Not sure what you mean by all the little animals .

All kinds of creatures live in algae. Loricarids - generally - eat the algae, and everything in it.

Loaches quite often don´t eat the algae, but the small creatures. These can be bacteria, small legged animals - lots iof variety

Any time you have fish twice the size of others there can be problems. Especially if they like similar foods. A 4+ inch fish eats more than twice as much as a 2 inch fish.

I keep both my BN pleco & hillstream loaches in unheated tanks here in warm-ish California... but not together.