Loaches Online Forum

The Walmart hillstream I have been nurturing for about a month, finally died. This fish never really thrived. It did start eating, but then quit shortly thereafter. Fortunately, it was in a Qtank.
I'm still not sure what it was, but am leaning toward an L. disparis now. The fish of the month at many of our Walmarts is the peacock eel so maybe the hillstreams will be available at those stores in May. I would really like to find some of those vanmanenia that have been around.

Bad luck, Jim.

Sorry Jim! You tried your best!

Oh bum! I was in my local Wally the other day. So sad.....there was one centralized bank of tanks that had this huge bacterial bloom going on. The tank they always have their Weather Loaches in had at least 3 lying on their backs gasping their last with signs of bacterial infection.

@ $1.98 each it was horribly tempting for me to "rescue" the other 4 or 5, but common-sense got the better of me.

Martin.

FWIW, I lost one of mine in apparently similar way: it simply did not have enough interest in food and starved to death about a month ago (mine are still in a qtank, about to reach the 3 mo mark).

I'm beginning to think that one issue with Vannies is that they actually need higher current than other hillstreams. As an experiment, I've drastically upped the current in their 10g (a powerhead intended for a 30g, on max, sitting almost at the bottom of the tank) and I think it made the remaining fish happier.