Cleaning a loach tank

[wm_crash]

Howdy,

I currently have a dozen Sewellia sp SPOTTED. I use sand as substrate, with 4 larger rocks and a large driftwood. At this point it is easy to feed the fish as the food stays at the top of the substrate and they eat it . . . whenever they eat. I do water changes from the top of the tank to avoid siphoning out eggs or youngsters

I am contemplating changing the substrate to small pebbles in order to protect eggs from parents. I am also contemplating geting some P cheni, which for breeding at least, seems to need small pebbles.

How to feed the fish in such a setup in order to avoid getting rotting food amongst pebbles? Or how do I handle siphoning while making sure I am not throwing/flushing away tiny livestock?

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

[raving_wayne]

something i have seen a friend do when feeding is this: he too have small pebbles for substrate and when feeding pellets and such he has a tray laid in the tank (which remains always) he has a lenght of pvc tube which is puts in the water and touches the based to the tray then loads his pellet into the tube once the pellets and such have sunk he slowly removes the pvc tube leaving a nice bed of feed which after 5mins of the fish eating is either gone or can be syphoned straight out without disturbing any other substrate might be worth lookin at sommit like that

i have also heard of people doin a similar thing when feeding bloodworm and such but they have a T pvc pipe so the loache sand such can swim in the tube eat the worm then swim out the other end

rave

[Diana]

To siphon water without collecting eggs or fry put a piece of nylon stocking over the end of the siphon. You won't get much debris this way, either, though some coarser debris will stick to the stocking and you can carefully remove that by hand.