Loaches Online Forum

Hi, when I first got into the fish keeping hobby I was clueless and ended up with a motley crew of friends in my 75 gal fresh water tank. Now, after falling in love with the dojo loaches, I am revamping my tank and wondering a few things about my new stock idea.

1. I currently have a gold dojo, I want to add 2 regular dojos and 6 dwarf "chain" loaches. Will they be nice to one another?
2. I also have several large mystery snails that do fine with the dojo, but will the dwarfs mess with them?
3. I would like to add a few mid level tank fishies for balance. Any suggestions on what would look and behave nicely with the loaches?
Thank you all....Any suggestions welcome...

I've never kept these in the same tank, but I would very much doubt there would be any clash.

One thing though is that you'd have to keep the tank a little cooler than the sidthimunkis (dwarf chain loaches) would like, or a little warmer than the dojos would like.

Dojos are a cool water fish. Optimum tank temperature is about room temperature or cooler.
Sids prefer a much warmer tank.
Go with more Dojos.

Most Loaches are snail predators and will nip and harass the Mystery Snail until it will not come out of its shell. It will starve. I did have a Dojo a long time ago that was not interested in snails, so it can happen, but most do think of snails as food.

Upper level fish for a cool tank:
Rosy Barbs
Striped Barbs (careful, there are 2 that look similar, one handles cooler water than the other)
White Cloud Minnows (for a short time- they are too small)
Melanotaenia lacustris will handle 21*C
Bedotia geayi will handle 20*C
Puntius denisoni (15*C)
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/species ... =denisonii

Lower level fish compatible with this temperature:
There are quite a few cats that are OK in a cooler tank. Have a look at Planet Catfish, and once you find just one fish that thrives in the correct temperature range they have a search feature that will locate other fish that like that temperature.
Here is one such search which started from Agamyxis pectinifrons
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/se ... esults=100

How would Odessa barbs go in a tank like that?

If I remember correctly, Odessa Barbs are a color selection of this species. Looks pretty good.

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/species ... ng=English