beaufortia tank and keeping

[katja]

Hello!

I keep 6 Beaufortia, most likely kweichowensis, for a year and a half now. At first they were in my 112l community tank, then they got a 54l river tank. They share it with 10 Tanichthys micagemmea now. There are some snails and algae, but that's within a normal range. The tank is decorated with sand, smaller river pebbles and bigger ones as well as some slates. There are some branches planted with java moos floating around, the back is planted with Vallisneria and Cryptocoryne.

My problem is that the fish are relatively shy, I rarely see more than two of them at once. Aditionally they don't seem well fed. They get frozen and living bloodwormes (red and black), cyclops, tubifex, and various pleco tabs, but they love flakes the most, thats when I get to see more than 2 or 3 of them. They don't grow much either...

Its filtered with a mat filter and a power pump with 1000l/h, but I throtteled it to 500l/h I guess. Lighted with 18W T8 without reflector. Temperatur between 20 and 24°C, the water ist middle hard and almost neutral. I chance 20l water every week.

I hope you have some tips for me!
Greetings from germany,
Katja

[Jim Powers]

Beaufortia do tend to be shy, but often overcome that at feeding time.
It sounds as if you are feeding them a good variety so I don't know any other food to suggest. The fish in your pics look healthy.
Beaufortia and other "sucker belly" type hillstreams tend to put on weight in the back and tail. Yours look to be thick in those areas so they must be eating well.
All the Beaufortia that I have had over the years have not grown much at all in length despite eating well. They only seemed to put on the weight as described above.
If you want hillstream loaches that are going to be out more often, I would suggest Pseudogastromyzon cheni or one of the Gastromyzon species if you can find them.

[ch.koenig]

hi Katja
I agree with Jim.
they are kweichowensis. Other beaufortia are not on sale.
to see more action: why not a beautifull sewellia lineolata? they are moving around all day.
cheers Charles

[clint]

I like the tank setup, very nice.

[katja]

Hey!

Thanks for the promt replys. You made me feel better, I just feared that I made something wrong.
I don't want another species, at least not as replacement for those, I love them. Maybe I'll remove the driftwood someday, so I can watch the hillstream loaches better. At the moment I can rarely see the pebbles, let alone the fish on it. I don't mind it if I don't see all of them all the time, as long as they are healthy and happy.

It's great to have finally found a forum about loaches, somehow I never thought about this one although I knew it from the beginning of my "fishkeeping career". So please don't blame me, but there are so many questions that piled up in the last year.

Do you have any more tips for me to make them feel more comfortable?
Does it make sense to feed them some vegetables? I tried cucumber, but they would always ignore it. I could try spinach, through.
What about the lighting? Can I use the reflecter or do they prefer it darker?
How hard should the current be?
Is the tank big enough?
Would it help if I provide the food (at least pleco tabs) in a small bowl so it is easier to reach and I have control of how much is eaten and how much just lies around feeding the snails or would they not eat it?

From what I read here there haven't been much (any?) success in breeding them. Is there anything that might be worth a try? Independently, at which age do they reach sexual mature?
I observed different kinds of body shapes with my Beaufortia, 3 are rounder, the others are edgier. I was never able to see any kind of permanently different colouration as was written in other posts. The colour seems to change depending which substrate they are on.
Do you know anything about breeding/mating behavior?

Yeah, a whole lot of questions, I hope you don't mind.
Thanks again for the help this far.

Best wishes,
Katja

[Jim Powers]

Well, I can appreciate all the questions. I had them too, 10 years ago when I first visited this site.
I wouldn't make this any more difficult than you have to.
From what I can gather, your Beaufortia seem to be healthy and behaving normally. I would not feed them in a bowl. You can try to feed them some of the spinach, but in the years I have been feeding spinach to hillstreams, I have never had a Beaufortia touch the stuff. Mine prefer frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp, as well as various pelleted foods.
You can experiment with increasing the current to see if they respond with different behaviour. That may or may not happen, I just don't know.
Sometimes, adding dither fish, as you have done, will make fish more comfortable. Adding more would probably not help and would only add to the bio load of the tankl.
So, I think you are doing fine with these fish. Just sit back and enjoy them.

[katja]

Huhu!

After I complained all of them were out today again. Very active, swimming around, eating, comment fighting... I haven't seen them like this for long. Who would have thought that a little complaining does wonders.

I remembered that I once watched something that looked like a try on mating to me, for sure it was different from the fighting they usually do. One of them got all pale, the fins were splayed out and they were bending their tails above one another while lying beside each other. Does that sound familiar to any of you?
I made a video of that situation, but the quality is very bad, if you want to see it, I'll post it as well.

Greetings,
Katja

[Jim Powers]

Please post the video. Since we don't have any confirmed breeding of this species, we don't have knowledge of specific spawning behaviour. Seeing a video might help if the behaviour is similar to other species that have spawned in aquariums.

[katja]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3NDn-79wdQ

As I said, the quality is awful. And it's just a short sequence, when I decided to get the cam they were almost done... But you get the idea.

Greetings,
Katja

[Jim Powers]

I can't be for sure, but it looks like a territorial dispute to me.

[CatsandFish]

Hey there

I've been keeping 6 Beaufortia's together with Gastromyzon', Spotted Sewellia, S. lineolata and Stiphodon's
They are frequently out and about, are not at all shy but for the moment i put my head in front of the aquarium, unlike the Sewellia's who don't seem to mind onlookers at all and just keep grazing.

The pale colour in your vid to me shows just a heavy territorial fight
one of my Beaufortia does this every once in a while and just goes bonkers towards any of the Hillies in the tank.

[ch.koenig]

I agree with Jim.
spawning behaviour could look more like this
http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... =puliensis
all descriptions of sewellia and gastromyzon mention a moving side by side, tail of the male going under the females body. it's still in question if the "fences" of the male-lineolata play a role in this procedure. spotted males have smaller fences, hard to detect, elongata have none as far I can see. only pseudogastromyzon are different in spawning behaviour as seen in a vid on youtube. but they are a little different in "normal" behaviour too.
cheers Charles

[katja]

Hey!

Thanks for the answers. I'll guess I just keep watching.

a moving side by side, tail of the male going under the females body

Isn't that exactly what I ment with

they were bending their tails above one another while lying beside each other

?


I'm planning to do something with the tank setup as soon as I'll find some freetime, then I will show you some new pics.

Greetings, Katja

[ch.koenig]

no Katja. in german we call this "schwanzschlagen", that means "hit with the tail". that's one possibility to judge the strength of the adversary.
at least what I can see in the video.
the picture I posted show a sliding under the females body. going up to spawn they should be interlocked with their pectoral fins.

[katja]

Huhu!

Okay, thanks for the explanation.

Greetings,
Katja