Share your Loach Antics

[Bottomfeeder]

My Chenis chase eachother and move upside down around and under the slate. My little Dario swims around, looking over every piece of gravel or every inch of driftwood in a very cute manner. The filters I have are this model

See the little square cave at the bottom? The Dario has the cave at the bottom of both my C600's staked out as his little spot. Driftwood? No. Rocks? No. Inside the filter intake zone...lol
On Monday, the day after I bought the Dario, I came home and freaked out because I didn't see him. Then I saw him staring at me with a smart aleck look from the divided section that is holding a Ctenopoma until Saturday. He somehow sqeezed through. The divider! Pond Snails can't even get through there!


My name is AJ, and I am a Loachaholic


Even though I only have 5 Loaches

 

[FUEGO]

My shoal of '24' looks like a swarm of bees when they come up to the surface to feed off floating pellets. It's very entertaining to observe the mad dash and food stealing from one another. Never mind all the quarreling clicking going on at the same time.

 

[Plec123]

when i had a single clown a year or 2 ago, i could hear him clicking at night when i tried to sleep. thought it was pretty funny.

 

[Mr_Altepeter]

I don't have any but the more I read about them the more I want some!

They are worth the cost of the bigger tank!!!

 

[Mr_Altepeter]

I haven't seen mine sleeping on their sides yet, though they will lay on the tank bottom for a moment or two and then race around for a bit. The most clicking i have heard at one time is when I last dumped a bunch of snails into the tank. It took about 3 seconds for then to realize a super treat was waiting for them. Then began the clicking. Almost sounded like someone was wmacking two little rocks together. Great fun!!

The babies are doing ok after the first week at home (11, lost one the first night) and after about five minutes in the Q-tank they were all clicking away as well. They are still a little skittish, not as bad as the 6 in my 75 were when I brought them home, but maybe that's because there are so many of them. Will try to get pictures this weekend. On a positive note I did manage to get one oddball. He has a black spot behind his middle strip, hopefully it stays nice and clear and doesn't grow into the stripe......

Keep the stories coming and feel free to post any pics if you can catch them being crazy!!!

 

[gomezladdams]

Heres the ongoing saga of my skunk loaches copied from another site.I thought I posted it here too but couldnt find it.

This is a post I made at another site 12/18/07.I'm putting it here cause I Know theres some loach lovers here and thought you'd get a kick out of it and maybe help me figure out what the heck is going on.

In my fishroom I have 2 125g tanks in a corner against each other like an L.I was putting my group of striata in one of the tanks when I noticed one of them swimming in the other tank.I netted him out and put him in with his buddies and didn't really think about it.I was also keeping 2 skunk loaches in a tank full of tiger endlers.The endlers seemed to be decreasing in # so I assumed the skunks were eating the fry,and went to remove them.Pulled a large clump of hornwort out carefully checking it for fish and dumped it in the tank I had just put the striata in and went to catch the skunks to put in the other 125g.I could only find one and assumed the other had died or jumped,so I moved the single loach.The next day I saw a skunk swimming with the striata,and quickly checked the other tank,the single loach was still there,I guess one was hiding in the hornwort!I figured on moving one or the other but hadn't gotten around to it a week later when I noticed 2 skunks swimming with the striata!
The only explanation is the fish had managed to jump through a 1" gap in the cover on one tank and land in the 1" gap in the cover of the other tank!And the other striata must have done the same thing when I had moved the other group!
Ok maybe not that exciting but I was certainly impressed.

Ok now it gets weirder,the skunk loach is back in the other freaking tank again today.Thing of it is,theres a small hatching tank sitting on the top of the tank he was in blocking the path of a potential jump.There is one other possible explanation.
These 2 tanks share a sump.The return is 3/4 pvc run from a single pump.Could this fish have swam up the outlet in one tank,to the "T" and downstream to the other tank?Its the only other thing I can think of.The pipe is about 1" above the water so It really would have to work to do that.
one month later
Ok now today BOTH skunks were in the second tank!!!Playing and displaying at each other and more colored up than I have ever seen them.I had meant to put them back together but never got around to netting one out.
3 weeks later
aaaaaaaaaand one of the skunks is back in the other tank again!!lol
2 weeks later
And they are both in tank 2 again!
one year later
They are at it again!
Now for some reason when I added the botia striata to the tank,the migrating behavior stopped.A few weeks ago I took out the striata to put in the showtank I set up.
Yesterday WTF! A skunk loach was in the other tank again!And along with him,2 red tail garra had followed him over!

 

[Mr_Altepeter]

Now that IS damn funny!! Has to be frustrating though. One of the first things I learned about loaches when I started doing my research was that they will often find there way out of almost any tank. At the LFS I go to, I have seen an Angelicus actually swim into the return line and pop out into the next tank over. I happened ot be BSing with the Fish manager at the time and he told me that it was quite common to have them do that. A couple of days later I bought one

When one of the semi-local Petsmarts was getting ready to get rid of the live plant tank to go to the plastic tubes, I tried to get that tank from them. Not sure how many gallons it was, but my thinking was that it would have been perfect for Loach tank! Around 4 ft wide and maybe 4-5 ft front to back, with either 3 or 4 different depths as the tanks went toward the back. It would have been great to watch the loaches migrate from tank to tank so to speak.

 

[justin guest]

Sounds like a sump migration. They probably both swim down into the sump at night and hold loach rituals when your not there
Great pics everyone

j<><

 

[Mr_Altepeter]

Sounds like a sump migration. They probably both swim down into the sump at night and hold loach rituals when your not there
Great pics everyone

j<><

Loach Rituals?!? This I gotta see!

 

[JakeH]

Some great stories & pics! Mine dont "migrate", but they do watch TV with us & they love to act like they weren't just looking at you. Thats awesome that justinguest posted up that smiley with the eyes....thats exactly what it looks like when they do it: Who...what..no...wasnt me...I wasnt looking at your wife...I was just watchin...the game....I mean the show...what you guys were watchin...
They give me the same look when I catch them punching holes in my sword plants. They just give me that stunned look like a teenager that cant decide whether to lie or tell the truth or just run away. My wife says I think they're cuter than her, but thats simply not true...she fills out a bikini muuuuuuch better than they do...I friggin love my CL's!