The past year has definately not been a good year for me when it comes to fish keeping. In a matter of about a week, I lost every single fish I had in my 20 gallon tank, and the same thing happened in my 10 gallon tank only a matter of months later. Between May and August, I lost every single one of my fish except for my ancient Beta, Barney, who is in an entirely different 1 gallon tank and doing just fine. I decided to give up on getting anymore fish. But last week, a new pet store opened in my town, and finally they actually have some different fish then the other two places. So I've decided to give it another shot. My absolute favorite fish in the world is loaches, I absolutely love them, so a friend told me that there was somebody here who could help me out. I am trying to learn everything I can about taking care of these fish. I no longer have my 20 gallon tank, but I am planning on getting a tank anywhere upwards of 55 gallons. I have kept my 10 gallon, and plan to use it as a quarentine tank. The stores around me currently sell Kuhli or Coolie loaches, dojo loaches, clown loaches, yo-yo loaches, orange-finned loaches, skunk loaches, and horseface loaches, so those are the main ones I'm trying to learn about. I plan to set up my tank as a tank primarily devoted to loaches. It will be a 55 gallon tank or above. I need all the advice I can get. Could somebody please help guide me along into becoming a great loach owner? Thanks in advance!
Trying to learn about loaches
- Thread starter Fishlord1
- Start date
to MFK!I moved your thread here. You will find plenty of sticky threads in this section to suit your needs. If I were you, I'd cycle the tank first.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84598
Try yoyos, kubotai, histrionica, dario, rostrata or zebras for a start. In a 55g, a dozen of one species should fit in there. You may add some Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki which grow to 2 inches max only. They tend to be feisty little monkeys and at the same time, costly but if money is no object, try a large group of them. I would advise against mixing dojos with them. A lot of botiine loaches tend to harass serpentine shaped loaches and kuhlis certainly will not like being harassed around either. If you can get a 20g, you could house 8-10 kuhlis in there.
I do have one question. What is the best kind of substrate that you can get for any kind of loach?