Caves for weather loaches - your experience

[fishdance]

Thank you for the suggestion to loaches online. I love loaches but suspect I would not be a good fit there as I do a lot of hormone induced spawning and have personally kept large clown loaches over 40cm years ago when export was permitted. Still able to catch the odd large specimen in the wild but they get eaten. They are terribly boring at that size but a school of a thousand or two small clown loaches schooling mid water make for a great display.

From bitter experience, I don't publicly share photos online anymore. I'm normally open to sharing photos and information by private email. Plus there is a lot of information already. More scientific journals and aquaculture trending towards ornamental species, more internet access arriving to remote rural places and to be honest, in this day and age (COVID exceptions) it is quite simple to jump on a plane and get some hands on experience.

The weather loach is dull in appearance but exceeds in personality and (mistaken) inquisitiveness. I'm sure you will love them. Have you considered the horse face loach if you like weather loaches? Or a clumping group of spiney (peacock) eels?

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

have personally kept large clown loaches over 40cm years ago when export was permitted.

Wow, you really lucked out there! The vast majority (of larger females, the males are smaller still) only top out between 20 and 30 cm.

Concerning not sharing photos and info, that is fair enough. I'm not an expert in the world of hormone induced fish spawning, but I do know it has many secrets.

The weather loach is dull in appearance but exceeds in personality and (mistaken) inquisitiveness. I'm sure you will love them. Have you considered the horse face loach if you like weather loaches? Or a clumping group of spiney (peacock) eels?

I definitely do enjoy weather loaches. Although I've never experienced their personality and inquisitiveness (see below), the golden form is actually quite attractive IMO.
And I agree with you that even with the much duller wild form, their behavior would be more than enough to make up for that.

As for why I have yet to see that behavior: 3 years back when I was new to loaches and too afraid of the Internet to trust, say, Loaches Online and MonsterFishKeepers over my well meaning but likely misguided (at the time, they have improved) local Big Al's, I had 1 with my 473 liter's existing fish in their growout 240 liter at a 29 degree temperature. It ended up dying around 5 months after I bought it (IDK from what, but it had very recently survived a vacation tank-crash that may have ended up taking too much of a toll and killing it).

Looking back on it, despite what Big Al's told me then, I should have been keeping at least 3 (as is rightly planned for my 2nd 473 liter) at no warmer than 25 degrees. I believe these 2 errors (most likely the first) may have had to do with why I never saw my first weather loach being as inquisitive as many report, though I fully expect my future trio to be that way given that they will be in a properly sized group with an appropriate temperature.

The suggestions are much appreciated. Horseface tick most of the right boxes for me, but, unique in appearance as they are, they hide most of the time - unlike the much more active, out-and-about species (weather, yoyo, Burmese, kuhli, etc) that I am planning for my 2nd 473 liter. So getting them would just add to the bioload without the visual benefit of active species.
However, spiny eels are definitely very interesting fish. They're not compatible with my planned stocking for bioload+tankmate-eating reasons, but they'd be one of my top choices if my non-aquarist cousin housemate lifted the 3 tank limit.

 

[fishdance]

You can train weather loaches to eat out if your palm if you have patience and a strict routine so they can anticipate. Others will soon copy. That will go a long way towards your enjoyment.

I keep (and breed) khuli loaches and spiney eels, the best way to make sure you see them is to have more. A hundred in a tank for example. Khuli will naturally breed, need a very deep 8- 10mm substrate so some eggs and babies can survive.

Spiney eels are induced. Bright green eggs which are quite pretty.

The golden weather and khuli loaches are intensively farmed now. Short bodied specimens have been available for a few years.

Not sure if available where you live but many of the asian Cobitis species are pretty.

You need more tanks...

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

You need more tanks...

I sure do! ?
Unfortunately my non-aquarist cousin-housemate drew the line at 3 and only drew it at 3 because one of those 3 was free, otherwise they would have drawn it at 2....

I'll see if I can secretly keep some spiny eels and/or more loach species in Rubbermaid stock tanks, without my cousin catching on. They at least agreed to let me use those as quarantine tanks, which makes it possible to do the above.