New Videos of my flock O' loaches

[grizzlyone]

I was messing about a bit with the digital camera and thought you might like to see some of the results. I realize that I'm a bit overstocked at the moment, but if I can ever find the right condo, I have a 120 and 90 empty and ready to be moved into. I figured thats the easiest way to move them.

Right now there's a Eheim 2217 which is good for about 150 gallons on a 40 gallon tank. As you can see I have a good mix that seems to work out. I have darios, yoyos, zebras, kubotai, rostrata (I think) and histronica, along with a few mixed types of Schistura



http://media.putfile.com/Thieving-Dario

http://media.putfile.com/Bloodwormfrenzy1

http://media.putfile.com/Bloodwormfrenzy2-19

http://media.putfile.com/Bloodworm-Frenzy-5

http://media.putfile.com/Dancing-Loaches-1

http://media.putfile.com/Dancing-Loaches-2

http://media.putfile.com/Dancing-Loaches-3

http://media.putfile.com/Loach-Dance-1

http://media.putfile.com/Loach-Frenzy-1



Cheers,

Kevin

[mickthefish]

really good vids, the fish look happy and healthy bud.
as to over stocking you should see some of my tanks.

mick

[jones57742]

Nice vid's Kevin.

Folks I know from experience very little about loaches based on experience but:

Is it possible to raise small juvie loaches to full adult size with the stocking density depicted in Kevin's vid's.

Also are these loaches happy fishies with the stocking density depicted in Kevin's vid's.

I am not attempting to create a "sh....t storm here" but only requesting input based on your experience.

TR

[mickthefish]

well TR, i think it's a good possibility to acheive good growth even when adding youngsters to a tank with mixed sizes.
Kevins vids prove it.
as Kevin does'nt say about his filtration, i imagine it's a good one looking at the fish he has.
on a different note though this is where a Q tank will come into it's own, to make sure the fish for adding are in tiptop health.

mick

[grizzlyone]

In my experience a Q tank is an absolute must. I learned that lesson the hard way. In fact, have a couple going at any one time and a couple that come online if some good purchase comes up.

I don't have any empirical data on overstocking. I do try to keep an eye on how everyone is interacting. There's lots of hidey holes and places to hang out. I even added one of those floating turtle logs that's kind of a "loach treehouse" and gets some good use.

There's the normal alpha loach behavior that you see, but then a few surprises....two of the histronica are rather large and they chase each other once in a while, but don't seem to pick on the smaller fish. The darios can be little devils sometimes and I'll see them pick on some of the bigger guys once in a while.

As you can see from the one video with the blood worms, the dario snuck in and grabbed one of the bloodworm cubes under the nose of the big histronica....


I'm hoping that the temp full house won't be much longer. I had hoped to be in a new place 6 months ago, but the housing gods are not being kind right now.....I tried to mitigate the situation with the higher filtration for now...I figure 3x's the suggested filtering capacity should be ok for a temporary period. Like I mentioned, there's a 90 and a 120 waiting for them and I'm going to a sump and fluidized bed filtering for the new tanks...and when I say overkill, its definitely gonna be overkill as the fluidized alone is rated for 900 gals....I've learned there is no such thing as too much filtering.


I'll be getting rid of the 40 stretch hex in the vids, so if anyone in the area is interested, PM me or I'll make an announcement here when I move. Everyone cross your fingers. I never did like the shape, but it was a smoking deal and a definite upgrade from the 29...


As for size, everyone of these guys started very small. The zebras I bought were less than 1/2 inch two years ago. I feed them mostly flake with bloodworms and brine shimp as a treat. They don't really go for veggies for some reason and didn't bother when I had plants, but then the plants didn't last due to the height of the tank..its an odd shape. The darios have grown explosively and you've seen the size of the histronica too..they are 4-5 inches and plump as heck...the striata have pretty well grown the same across the board while the darios have had not..a couple of them are bigger than the other 3, but all have at least doubled in size within a year.

I don't want to fall into the "they seem happy" syndrome but I can only go from the loachy dance behavior and the fact that I've had very few deaths in this tank. I also keep battery backups on the filter/airstones to prempt any short term problems. I don't see anyone not eating, if anything these guys are the piggies and I can count on the "food dance" before I go to work in the morning and when I get home at night...and they don't do it at other times...... so they must think they have me trained...lol.

Kevin

[Jim Powers]

Great vids and fish!!