Loaches Online Forum

I cant remember how long i've been keeping these little chaps, it must be around 1 year 8 months now. But over the past 8 months i've seen 'i think' two males pestering a well stocky female at the rear corner of the tank. There are tons of little crevasses for them to zip in and out of but i think something might happen here soon. When i say pester, it looks like the male is nibbling the females face and then moves down her lateral line with him and her moving back-wards under the pebbles. It looks similar to 'shadowing' but this happens in reverse.

I'll keep everyone updated and hopefully capture some pictures. Here's a couple of pictures i captured lately.

Male and female.


Breeding cave...Hopefully.

That's very encouraging, Graeme!!
Keep us posted!

They are looking great Graeme, fingers crossed

I hardly ever see mine anymore, they keep well hidden. Part of it might be Im only in the room to feed/change water so they are probably a little scared of me

Heres one of my females


I think I only have three males. I hope at least one is capable of doing the deed at some stage!

Just out of interest, what sort of pH/hardness/temp are you keeping at?

Ashleigh

they look great the pair of you, i would'nt have thought they were cave spawners mate, the only time i saw any kind of courtship it was out in the middle of the tank and they seemed to have furrowed the gravel into a very shallow trench.

mick

I would think both ways at the moment Mick...

Seriously though, these Loaches have lived in my care for a long time and will show all sorts of exciting behavior with swimming on the upper levels and shadowing behaviors but it all comes back to a certain area of the tank. And that area is what i photographed.

Neutral waters Ashleigh, fresh tap water normally of ph7.2 but drops to 6.8. and general 8 - 12 dH, 140 - 210 ppm.

Temperature: 73-23 depending on room heat (may rise slightly)

Lovely picture Ash!

i've had mine for over a year now myself, though my ph and hardness are higher than yours bud.
from what i can understand of the habitat the water runs through limestone so it's got to be fairly hard.

mick

Indeed they come from a Hard-water system within the Limestone rivers, we know all this.

Reports of activity's we dont....

I've also been keeping 26 of these for a long time now too, and although I see lots of interesting behaviours between obvious males and females, I am yet to see any fry. They are in a species-only river tank tank, just with blue apple snails for company. I use RO water but buffer it with minerals to pH 8.0, dH 12-15. Our local tap water would be of the ideal parameters but is so high in phosphate, I refuse to use it. When I finally get my fish room sorted, I am planning on separating some of the group to see if for instance I can trigger them into spawning with just one male and one female in the same tank together.

Emma

Fantastic pics !

Good luck!
Mine are sexually inactive …
Gerhard

Beautiful fish I must say and I look forward to any and all developments..