Figured I'd start an updated thread on this since CL growth is so frequently queried on. CL have always been a difficult fish for me for whatever reason and so I've pretty much focused all of my efforts on keeping my current group happy and healthy lately. As any loach keeper knows they are intensely hard to photo so most of what you'll get is swarming loach ball pictures.
I got a group of 16 little beauties about 3 months ago from a little fish shop in Richmond, VA. Lost one in quarantine from whatever intestinal issue and several more showed symptoms. I had tried salt and heat initially but after the one died I went to meds. The remaining 15 seem to be healthy after 4 rounds treating the whole tank with prazipro. From now on, I will probably just begin treating loaches for parasites with prazipro right out of the gate.
They are staying in a 7' 210g tank with pictus cats, lampeye tetras, and bala sharks atm.
By my eye, they have all reached a median SL of around 3" (some slightly bigger some smaller) as of now and all have a somewhat rounded healthy profile. I think this'll be a good group to watch and keep track of for a better idea of baseline CL growth. I feed twice a day with two "finger-pinches" of these 3 feeds and am unlikely to change. The tank is kept at 82-85F and I change 50-75% water weekly right now, will ramp up as fish pick up size.
They do have a "queen". She is hard to photo but pretty clearly apparent when you're watching the group. Ime it's usually the fattest loach with its colors noticeably washed that's giving all the orders.
That's it for now. I'll update every couple of months hopefully and fingers crossed at least some of these will be monsters one day. Thanks for reading.
I got a group of 16 little beauties about 3 months ago from a little fish shop in Richmond, VA. Lost one in quarantine from whatever intestinal issue and several more showed symptoms. I had tried salt and heat initially but after the one died I went to meds. The remaining 15 seem to be healthy after 4 rounds treating the whole tank with prazipro. From now on, I will probably just begin treating loaches for parasites with prazipro right out of the gate.
They are staying in a 7' 210g tank with pictus cats, lampeye tetras, and bala sharks atm.
By my eye, they have all reached a median SL of around 3" (some slightly bigger some smaller) as of now and all have a somewhat rounded healthy profile. I think this'll be a good group to watch and keep track of for a better idea of baseline CL growth. I feed twice a day with two "finger-pinches" of these 3 feeds and am unlikely to change. The tank is kept at 82-85F and I change 50-75% water weekly right now, will ramp up as fish pick up size.
They do have a "queen". She is hard to photo but pretty clearly apparent when you're watching the group. Ime it's usually the fattest loach with its colors noticeably washed that's giving all the orders.
That's it for now. I'll update every couple of months hopefully and fingers crossed at least some of these will be monsters one day. Thanks for reading.
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