Loaches Online Forum

Hi All,

To follow on from last weeks loach pr0n it looks like the fish were successful in spawning :-)


We have confirmed sightings of four little wigglers out and about in the tank, they are about 4-5mm long at the moment. All very cute :-) I guess this answers the question of if P. Cheni will breed with a sand substrate with a yes.

Unfortunately the arrival of the new fish from Emma and Steve's has lead to quite some turmoil in the tank, the worst victim of this has been our Alpha male who stared in the last video.

We have no idea what he managed to do to his tail to get it into this state, knowing how these fish will twist and turn when battling i suspect he managed to get his tail trapped between some sharp bits of wood or stone and then striped the skin off getting free. He is a very unhappy fish at the moment and his tail is obviously too sore for digging spawning pits so he mooches around the slow zones of the tank and has ceded the alpha position to the next loach... It is hard to believe that this picture shows a substantial improvement over a few days ago.

Very interesting. I wonder how the young manage to move around in the sand. I would not have expected them to make it but obviously they have. I hope your former alpha heals up nicely . I have never seen anything like that before on a cheni. It will be interesting to see if he regains his status. Keep us posted.

Great news re: the P. cheni fry, LES..

Sorry to hear that the new hillies are causing problems though. Which ones seem to be the perpetrators, is it the S. wui or the Annamia? Fingers crossed your Alpha male makes a speedy recovery.

Emma

Congratulations on the new fry Les!

I suspect that your alpha P cheni has lived a life of luxury without the need for dominance from other species. Most of us are just as puzzled as to why or how.

Keep us updated.

Thanks all :-)

Emma Turner wrote:Sorry to hear that the new hillies are causing problems though. :? Which ones seem to be the perpetrators, is it the S. wui or the Annamia?

I don't think that it is actually the new fish causing problems directly although there are scuffles between all of them every now and again. I suspect that the with the increased population the tank dynamic got a little unbalanced and our second male cheni saw a chance to challenge the old alpha.

Certainly in all the time i have spent watching the fish i have not seen any damage being caused direct between the combatants (excepting a few split fins). It is this that has made me think that this kind of damage will have been caused by contact with the decoration in the tank, there are a number of places where stones and wood meet forming narrow gaps that could trap the tail of a fast twisting Cheni.

Generally the different species seems to get along quite well, I have seen Cheni and Annamia will happily share the same stone sitting side by side with no problems, unless it is a dominant Cheni who feels he has something to prove. It is hard to tell what the Wui do, there will often be a Cheni tail sticking out from under one side of a stone and a Wui tail from the other, they will then shuffle back and forth with no real sign of who is winning.

I am trying to get a good picture of the Annamia tussling. I believe we have one dominant Annamia who has developed fences on his pectoral fins. When the Annamia fight is this odd intertwining motion and it almost seems like the goal is to nibble off the fences from the rival, fascinating to watch.

There has been a lot of scuffling between my Annamias too. They also seem more than capable of taking on large Sewellia specimens. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on them because I can't have them causing a major upset. I need a bigger River Tank!

Emma

Excellent news LES.

Martin.

Congrats Les

Now I am going to have to set a tv up in front of the cheni tank and get that loach pr0n playing to show them what to do