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Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 8:19 am
by Basil
I’m still holding my breath, but both the A. Sidthimunki ( I have 9 of them) and the Botia Dario (7 of them) are doing well.
The Darios are wonderfully active and totally hold their own with the barbs at feeding time.
Hopefully I’ve successfully attached a recent video. The only time I’ve heard that wonderful loachy clicking is when I feed algae wafers. They love them!
https://youtu.be/8QuyzloO9cM

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:07 am
by Loachloach
Hi Basil, the link says "video unavailable"

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:25 am
by Basil
Oops. It was still private. Try it now.
And here’s another of my sidthimunkis.
They are still in the small holding tank for now but will go in the 40 g in about 2-3 weeks.
https://youtu.be/zfoZ5TpDTPU

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:46 am
by Crowden
Basil wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:25 am
Oops. It was still private. Try best fat burners for belly fat now.
And here’s another of my sidthimunkis.
They are still in the small holding tank for now but will go in the 40 g in about 2-3 weeks.
https://youtu.be/zfoZ5TpDTPU
That one seems to be bullying the other one. Kidding aside, they're awesome! haha

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 9:53 am
by Basil
They are quite the argumentive bunch. I put plenty of wafers in tbe tank yet they insist in fighting over 1. :roll:
And there are 7 of them so I feel they have a good group number.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 12:04 am
by NancyD
Both of your species look great! Feed up the sids, they look small yet.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:18 am
by Loachloach
Nice! Nothing better than argumentative loaches :lol:

On a side note, you can avoid the food arguments by feeding small pellets. New Life Spectrum and Northfin do really good quality food and for the size of your loaches the 1mm pellets will do them well. I started doing that years ago with my clown loaches as the bullies would otherwise just run away with the big pellets in their mouths...This way I always managed to keep multiple bottom dwellers together with no negative effects. I have corydoras, khuli loaches, pleco, SAEs which also feed at the bottom and denison barbs which these days would line up for where the food is although they prefer to feed in the water column.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 8:36 am
by Basil
Thanks loachloach and nancyd!

I’ll feed the sids maybe a bit more frozen food.
I do actually feed the Darios the New Life spectrum mini pellets every morning. But I’ve been alternating the afternoon feeding with Hikuri algae wafers and some sort of frozen food (thawed in tank water).
I only feed them twice a day; at 8 am when I get up and about 2 pm right before I leave for work. I know it would be better to do a third feeding but I don’t want to disturb the tanks when I get home at midnight after lights have been off and all are quiet.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:05 am
by NancyD
2 feedings a day are good! But that will also mean more water changes. That's the best way to keep young fish growing fast & well.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 9:16 am
by Basil
NancyD, I did take your advice and am doing 2 20% water changes on the 75g per week. And a 40% change about every 5 days on the 10g holding tank that the sids are currently in.
We just installed a 5 phase RO/DI system from Bulk Reef Supply so on my day off today, I’ll be testing the water made from my well water, mixing in my additives and testing again and doing a water change in my 40 g. ( only scissortail rasboras in the 40 g right now). Fingers crossed all goes well!
My plan is to temporarily remove the rasboras and rescape the 40 this weekend.
Monitor for about a week to make sure the tank stays stable, then add the cherry barbs that I have in yet another holding tank. Monitor for another week and then finally add the sids to their new home!
And I’ll be excited to get down to only 2 tanks for maintenance lol!

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:20 pm
by redshark1
Good clips, I came back some time after my unsuccessful attempt to watch.

These are lovely loaches.

I also use small pellets and spread them over a wider area so the dominant fish can't stop others feeding.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 8:37 pm
by NancyD
If frozen blood worms are 1 of your choices, I like to slice up a slightly thawed cube into small pieces. That way the sids (& darios & rasboras) can snarf up several bits without much fighting; & they thaw faster too. Bloodworms have a kind of tough outer layer that can take a few tries for the loaches to get them down if they're whole.

Like other have said, smaller food allows everyone to get some without much fighting...although some sparring is part of the loachy charm, lol.

On the water changes, I'd try for more than 20% 2x/week if you can. There's nothing like clean water to grow young fish & keep them healthy.

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 8:19 am
by Basil
Thank you redshark1!
Is was you who had sids before, correct? And spoke so highly of them.
And had to rehome them when you went to university?
I remembered that story when my LFS told me they had some in. :D

And yes, I break the algae wafers into smaller pieces to try and eliminate squabbling. But of course, there may be 3 pieces laying in the vicinity, but they will choose to want to converge on only one piece lol!

NancyD, I have a frozen variety pack and it does contain bloodworms. I do cut up the squares but I’ll be a bit more cognizant about making sure the bloodworms are small enough.

And now that we have our own RO/DI system setup, I can do larger water changes. I could only haul 30 gallons at a time from my LFS.

Thanks for all the advice. Very helpful as I delve into the world of loaches! :mrgreen:

Re: Update on my loaches! With video

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 9:24 pm
by FranM
Nice video.