New Loach Lover

[boxercrazy156]

Hi am new here have some Queen Loaches and Golden Zebra Loaches have a few questions about these lovely fish.

First off I live in Ontario Canada and am wondering are these seasonal fish? First of . I saw the queen loaches my lfs only had 3 so I bought them one was quite small the medium one seemed to be the agressive one and the larger one was the peacekeeper and very active. I wanted more but couldn't find them anywhere my large one jumped out when my glass top broke I had to order one in so it took a week and I was devasted I know they need to be in groups and since I was down to the two the smaller one always hid. After months of searching it was suggested that I try another type of loach with them so I found 2 Zebra golden loaches and they are a great addition now to find more of them it has been hard they are in the display tanks in several of the big chain stores Big Als but never in stock. I have recently purchased a 120 gallon and would like to move my loaches over and find more Golden Zebras they are very active and always out. I also want to add clown loaches in this tank because I love them and thought they grow to big for my current tank. There are always clown loaches in every store I go to but never the others my lfs has ordered them for me every week since April and have not recieved any.

[glenna]

i live in North CArolina, so am not sure if this is helpful, or not.
If I were in your position, I would try petsolutions.com or Foster and Smith. they will sometimes have a "reasonable" loach collection, albeit a little pricey. Ordering online is not as fun as picking them up at your LFS.
I have ordered from petsoultions and was impressed with the quality of what I received. The problem, of course, is being home when a shipment arrives (it gets pretty hot here in the Summer).
I do believe there is a seasonal component with loach availability but I am not sure of how that corresponds to your situation.

If you have any pics, they would be fun to look at!
good luck!

[boxercrazy156]

I cannot order from the states they wiill not ship here but I found the gold zebra loaches I ended up getting 6 more to total 8 of them they are very active loaches I now see that my queens are more inactive hide more the one queen loach always hid before anyways should I keep the queens in the aquariumthey are in now when I move the Golden zebras to the 120 gallon? My goal once I move the Golden Zebras to the larger tank is to get clown loaches also I saw them together in another aquarium and they got along great, the Goldens are always on things while the clowns swim around more.