Yoyo loaches

[ey]

I was planning to add some Yoyo loaches to my tank.

I was wondering if 5-6 yoyos is a good size to start off with? I remember reading somewhere ages ago that it was better to get odd numbers with yoyos and not evens as it will cause them to get aggressive towards one another - is this true? If so, I might stick with getting 5.

The LFS sells wild caught yoyos, not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I do notice them being very large - they're sold 6-9cm so a pretty good size.

Would yoyos go well with clown loaches? Do many loach owners here have these 2 species in the same tank? I'm just hoping that will leave each other alone and not get into any fights. I've had yoyos in the past, but lost 9 adult yoyos in the space of 48 hours when the bloodworms from the LFS had some bacteria in it, luckily the clowns were unaffected. I just wanted to give the yoyos another go.

[ey]

I went to the LFS to get 8 Yoyo loaches today.

They are healthy and a good size (6-7cm). The only problem was the lady at the LFS made a mistake when trying to transfer the yoyos from the small fish bag to a larger fish bag - she had poured all the water and only 4 yoyos into the larger bag, the other 4 yoyos were stuck in the small bag. To make matters worse, the yoyos' barbels were stuck onto the empty bag, I had to help and add water to get them out, the 4 Yoyos were away from water for about 2-3 minutes - is this a concern?

She didn't pump air into the bag properly either so I was stressing out on the way home and adjusted the Yoyos to the tank immediately when I got home. They look better now that they are in the tank. I'll have to keep an eye out for them.

I hope they wont get into fights with the school of clowns

[Diana]

I have kept them together when the Clowns were small, (about the same size as the Yoyos) and even when they were near each other they each seemed to ignore each other.
As for odd or even numbers, I would rather suggest that 5 is probably the smallest number for a school, and more is better of either species.

Poor fish to get stuck in the bag like that!

One of the people who caught some fish a couple of weeks ago for me got hit by the eye spine of one of the Loaches I bought, but none of the fish poked their way through the bag.

I have had Loaches get stuck in the net for a few seconds, but nothing like as bad as some catfish. Still, better policy is to catch these fish with a cup, not a net.

[ey]

I have kept them together when the Clowns were small, (about the same size as the Yoyos) and even when they were near each other they each seemed to ignore each other.
As for odd or even numbers, I would rather suggest that 5 is probably the smallest number for a school, and more is better of either species.

Poor fish to get stuck in the bag like that!

One of the people who caught some fish a couple of weeks ago for me got hit by the eye spine of one of the Loaches I bought, but none of the fish poked their way through the bag.

I have had Loaches get stuck in the net for a few seconds, but nothing like as bad as some catfish. Still, better policy is to catch these fish with a cup, not a net.

Thanks Diana for the reply.

They are settling in OK now, some of the yoyos are exploring the bottom of the tank which seems normal but some are also swimming up and down the side of the tank which I find strange, maybe its just me.

Thats good to hear that your clowns and yoyos ignored each other and did not fight as in my experience and from what I've read, yoyos can get quite aggressive compared to clowns. These yoyos (6-7cm) are about the same size as my smallest group of clowns. I'm just worried they might fight the clowns when it comes to hiding spaces and feeding time. This is why I'm going to add a driftwood cave in the next day for hiding spots.

I ended up getting 8 yoyos, so that should be a pretty good size for now.

I know loaches have a tendency to get stuck in fish nets, but not in a fish bag! Well the yoyos were stuck in the bag for a good 2 minutes, so I was tempted when the lady asked if I wanted to choose other yoyos from the tank instead.

The yoyos sold at other LFS are often sold in a small group (about 20-30) and in a smaller size (4-5cm) and always seem to appear less active. I guess I was lucky to stumble along a good batch of 'wild caught' yoyos from this LFS, there were about 60-70 yoyos in the tank and all were crazily active, catching them with a net took me 15 minutes, so I would have not standed a chance catching them with a cup!