Loaches Online Forum

I’ve got a five year old weather loach and I need to get rid of my tank, my friends dad has a huge garden pond and said he’d be happy to take her, would the change of temperature be damaging to her if I release her now in May in the UK?

This year the temperatures are very low. Normally I´d say go and have fun, especially if you transpoort the fish arond 15 hrs (water is warmest then). But this year you might better wait until June

A problem is, wheather loaches are not native in the UK, but they could survive there. Therefore possession is banned, in order to prevent wheather loaches in nature.

Do make certain the fish in the pond will not have any opportunity to escape.

Only Misgurnus fossilis can survive outdoors in Britain and is therefore banned from sale as a result as it could potentially become an invasive species.

It would seem to me most cruel to put an animal into an environment in which it cannot possibly survive.

A donation to an individual or organisation that can care for the animal properly is the only moral course of action.

You imply this wheatherloach cannot be Misgurnus fossilis, as that species is banned

Following that view, you are right not to put the alternative species in a pond