Loaches Online Forum

After a nasty plant-poisoning event (my fault) resulting in loss of all fish incl. my pack of long-time loaches ~6yrs ago, a local importer has brought me back around to Botia with 6 wee clowns (first time they've been imported in >8yrs, it seems).
So far they're calmed down, settling in & getting nicely pudgy with my over-planted & generally invert.-laden & "vibrant" system, so I thought I'd log back into LOL.
Familiar faces. Hi.

Dr.Droid, Ph.D.
(in the meantime I also finished gradschool)

Hey andyroo, it's nice to see you again & welcome back to loach keeping. Any chance of pics of your new little darlings? I wonder just how long your inverts survive hungry little loaches, lol. Nothing like live foods to grow them up fast!

Congrats on the PhD!! That's wonderful! What field?

Hi andyroo and welcome back.

The forum is rather quiet these days, almost fossilised, and could not be described as "vibrant" as your tank.

Past mistakes are allowed to live on without correction and spammers seem the most frequent callers but it does hold a bank of useful information which is mostly helpful.

Facebook and perhaps other media have taken over, for there are definitely lots of people posting there and keeping Clown Loaches the right way.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/139544712868942/

I’m a newcomer but welcome back!
And huge congrats on the PhD!!

Yes, it's true that you can never really go home...
These sorts of fora do seem to be cyclical. Some have ups & downs, most just up and then down. Loaches is a very specific topic, so I guess just doesn't have the critical mass to re-spark - though I'm happy to give it a try!

To Nancy's question, I defended in Marine Biology in 2012, right before the loach/tank disaster. My specifics were in the in situ culture & restoration of Acroporid corals (staghorn-elkhorn); most of the nursery designs you see online or on TV these days came out of my thesis work as we tried to get around the frantic biofouling of any structure in Montego Bay (overfished & otherwise "enriched"). Hysterically, the structure that we abandoned is now the global go-to. I didn't publish because I couldn't get it to work around here, but it's done fabulously elsewhere and made some important careers

We hung our professional shingle in '08 and, to my knowledge, are still the worlds only contractors per se in the field. We're <www.seascapecarib.com>, if you're curious.