'butterfly' hillstream loach question

[Laura]

Hello,
First of all - great site!
I'm hoping for a suggestion. I have some gastromyzon sp., (I've tried to look them up, but I'm not sure which I've got.) Excuse me for the long posting, but I want to provide a snapshot of the environment, and what I've tried to date. They are in a planted stream/river themed tank and all are doing great except for one who is skinny. It is the same species as the ones who are fine and I'm looking for suggestions for my skinny fella.

I've got an unheated tank, 45 gallons, with a fluval 304, and 2 powerheads (one with venturi). I've had the loaches in there for around 4 months. Good current, lots of places to grow algae - one large rock, many large rounded pebbles, driftwood, and I never remove algae from 3 sides of the glass. Temp tends to be about 72 although I'm concerned about the upcoming summer - I'm planning for a DIY chilling system, or at least a surface fan.

Tankmates are khulis, pangio muraeniformis, Siamese algae eaters, cherry shrimp, pearl danios and a couple of applesnails. I know that shrimp, khulis and snails don't enjoy the current, but there's enough places where they can avoid it, although many often don't seem to.

I regularly feed them a variety of frozen food (daphnia, brine shrimp, bloodworms, white worms, mysis), with the occasional flake feeding. I also turn off the lower powerhead during feedings to allow food to settle on a flat surface so they have a chance of getting some. I have seen them eating some of the frozen food. Available also is zucchini and dandelion fed primarily for the snails. Although the SAE and khuli's love the zucchini, I've not seen the hillstreams go for either the dandelion or zucchini. Once when I fed them kale, I'm sure I saw one nibbling it, but I've avoided kale as it gets stinky - I'm willing to try it again if it's what is needed. I've also been trying a variety of pellet and tablet food - shrimp, spirulina - by a few different companies to see if I can tempt them - no luck so far.

I've read a lot about them eating a variety of food, so can only assume mine are either more fickle (or could they be nocturnal feeders?), or I haven't hit on their favourite. Outside of sucking on the glass and rocks, and getting the occasional bit of frozen food, I haven't seen them eat. I know that some sites refer to them eating the micro-organisms in algae, so I try not to worry, but although most are pudgy and fine, one of them obviously isn't faring well. He is also larger than the rest, so I have to recognize the possibility that he may just be old.

Can anyone provide any additional feeding pointers that I could work on? I already did a search of your fourm for related topics, but even though I had some technical glitches and couldn't read all on the postings, I didn't find any food suggestions other than what I've tried. (Good idea on the handout sheet for LFS for this species though)

Thanks very much in advance for any help you're able to provide, and again, my apologies for the length of this post.

Cheers.

[Gary Herring]

Laura,

Welcome to LOL! No need to apologise for the length of the post - the more information the better.
Your setup sounds great and it seems you've really done your homework in providing care and conditions for your hillstreams to thrive.
As far as i can see your not doing alot wrong, so don't worry too much about not seeing one of your Gastro's eating. As you have said, hillstreams graze on 'aufwuchs' and micro-organisms withen algae and elsewhere, and although a variety of other foods should always be offered, some (particularly smaller) fish seem able to live happily on algae, and the goodies withen it, alone. Certainly this appears to be the case with at least one of my Gastromyzons, whom i have never seen eat anything but algae. Just keep on offering foods as you are already, and im sure your fish will be fine. You could also try growing your own algae in a seperate tank, as myself and some others here do. Look back through previous threads for details. I posted my algae growing method a month or two ago, as did Martin Thoene.

Good luck,

Gary

[Gary Herring]

Here is a link to the algae farming threads:

Mine:
http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=808

Martin's
http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=922
(Bodily fluids optional!)

[Laura]

Thanks - I thought about trying farming algae; given your success I'll give it a go (I might pass on the special ingredient though )

[Martin Thoene]

Hi Laura and welcome to LOL. The "special ingredient" isn't totally necessary. Collection isn't so easy I guess. Us guys have a standard dispensing system that makes that somewhat easier .

Long posts are cool. They give (hopefully) the info people need to give good answers. It sounds like your fish are being well looked after.

Martin.