Loaches Online Forum

Hi all,
I'm Cindy from BC, Canada. I currently have a long established 70g Fancy Goldfish tank, which also contains a BN pleco, Sae's and cherry shrimp.
I also keep a 10g Natural Planted Tank (Walstad style). I am well versed in the basics of fishkeeping.

However, I have never kept loaches and would like to do well by them. I am currently setting up a 6' x 24"x 18" tank as a peaceful community. I have an Eheim 2028 hooked up, with plans to add another in the future as the fish grow. I will add additional water movement with a powerhead attached to a UV light.

The tank is drilled on the bottom and I have the cannister pulling from that hole - sweeping the bottom much like a koi pond with a bottom drain. The tank will be bare bottomed, which I know is an unpopular way to set up, but experience with my goldies has me convinced that the tank stays way cleaner this way!

I am providing large cave"condos" (stacked smoothed slates with spacers between so there are many levels of caves)

So on to my question . . . I've settled on polkadots and zebras as my loaches of choice. Would say, six each of these loaches be comfortable in a 120, when they are all full grown? More or less of each, perhaps?

What would your ideal numbers be?

I'm sure I will have many more questions . . . Thanks for any advice!

Cheers,
Ci

You won't put any substrate, like sand or gravel?
I think, that BD is good for ponds, also maybe good for other fishes, but loaches are bottom-fish, they like to search in the sand.
I'm not so good with english, perhaps i'm wrong...

Some fish are disoriented with a glass bottom tank, too. I would put a thin layer of rather fine gravel or coarse sand in the tank. As noted by Victor, Loaches are really bottom oriented, and the better part of their day is spent in sifting through the sand or gravel looking for food.

As for quantities half a dozen of each is fine. There is room for more fish in this tank, too. Are you planning on some mid or upper tank swimmers?

I have sand in all my tanks and they stay clean
the crap stays on top of the sand and with the cross flow from the filteration everything gets sucked into the intake of the filter

The bottom of the tank is painted so there is no 'mirror' effect which is what dissorients the fish ...but I may reconsider putting sand in there - I can insert standpipes into the drilled holes to draw from above the sand.

My other stocking considerations are a dozen or so longfinned danios, dozen or so glass catfish, 2-3 small species of pleco, african butterfly fish, maybe a redtailed shark (I know these choices would be pretty unexciting to some, but, well, I like what I like!)

Any opinions on the campatibility of all these?

Thanks for your replies!

Cheers,
Ci

Loaches like lots of water movement, so I would stay clear of anything long-finned. I'm not sure about the butterflies, but they have been recommended by some as upper half occupants, so perhaps they would be OK.
I have both kubotai and striata, and they would do fine in that tank size. I have ten of each. The kubotai seem to like to hang out on vertical wood surfaces, so you may consider adding some driftwood. Make sure the slate isn't sharp edged, as well - they sometimes wedge themselves in fairly good.
Striatas seem to have a bit of an edge to them - they are not aggressive, but they have some nasty habits. I've had one "shadow" a much larger clown loach and ultimately chase it away. I have also had one black neon and one black ruby barb lose an eye, which apparently is due to striatas. I wouldn't discourage you from having them, because they are great and very entertaining, but don't pick fish that are slow to get away.
I definitely agree with the people re the substrate. I have pool filter sand and the tank stays nice and clean.

You could maybe consider B. dario instead of the B. striata. The latter tend to hide more as they get bigger but dario stay pretty exciting.

I think most loaches tend to hide more once they mature.
a good arguement not to get all your loaches at once.
I to have had a striata take eyes...i witnessed it!
dario can be even more aggressive than striata!
nippy buggers
I have mature and juvies of all three right now.
I wouldn't worry about it though
all loaches rule!

My young Darios are all out and about, but my two big guys I never see. I haven't had personality problems with any of my Loaches, although my biggest Clowns loaches had a pretty bad fight. I think it could be because my fish are all still young and small. My clowns were 4" when they had the terrible fight.

I have 3 African Butterflies in my largest Loach tank. They are excellent fry hunters, but leave all my other fish alone. Not that I trust them. I have powerheads at one end of the tank and floating plants that are pushed to the far end of the tank by the water flow. The Africans Congregate in the plants. They seem pretty happy, and I really like them. Beautiful and elegant fish with great big mouths.

The nicest loach I have is a Histie. Beautiful, active and even tempered.

Oh well, I must have heard incorrectly. My striata are lovely but it's rare to see all of them at once. There is usually a cucumber involved if I do.

Histies are a fine choice for a tank. They are quite possibly the ideal (botia) loach.

So those of you who keep striata and find them to be a bit aggressive - what do you have for tank mates that the zebras don't bother?

.

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i will also vouch for B. histrionica, best fish i have ever bought, shockingly cute when small and still very pretty as they grow. they are also nice and active when bigger too.

diamond*girl wrote:So those of you who keep striata and find them to be a bit aggressive - what do you have for tank mates that the zebras don't bother?

I wouldn't call them aggressive exactly. More a bit nippy if something comes a bit close, but I've never seen them harass a fish for any length of time. The worst I've seen was the one that shadowed a clown loach, and that was for all of 15 seconds or so. It seems more opportunistic, i.e., they sort of tell fish to get out of the way if they get to close. The two fish that lost eyes were a black neon (in a 55 gal tank at the time) and a black ruby barb (when it was very small), and this happened over a year of keeping them. I have tetras (black neons, phantom, small cardinals), and some plecos and corys, as well as kuhlis, clowns and the kubotais, but the striatas never seem to bother much with them. They do appear to be dominant over the kubos, though. It may be that some individuals are a bit more ornery, that's all. I really like them overall!

I have four Striata. I have never had a problem with them, but they are still young. I like them a lot because they are out all the time. They keep my Yoyos in check.