Loaches Online Forum

Eleven days ago I purchased 5 kuhli loaches. I bought all that the store had---even the one that they dropped on the floor. Well, one died the next day, but four are still living. I'm not sure which one hit the floor; he may have been the one that died.

These two are the ones that worry me. First there is this one with the crooked spine. He is active and very interested in eating. Should I be too concerned about his spine? Is it a sign of disease?






Then there is this poor creature. He spent the first two days in my tank lying on his back. Now he swims and looks for food. I just completed a round of anti-internal-parasite meds on the whole tank. I hope he makes it; I like his markings.
I posted the second picture of him to show you that from the top he looks like a ribbon--very skinny!

Yikes, hope they pull through alright!

Hope they do make it, and 11 days sounds very good.

Skinny: they often starved them prior to shipping...if this is the case, they will be able to regain the body mass within 2-3 months easily.

Good luck with the crooked guy...

Good luck loachmom! Feed them small/crushed foods like flake,catfish pellets,bloodworm's and hopefully their little delicate stomaches will move on the larger foods in a couple of months.

Thanks Dave, Mike and Graeme,

I'll take good care of them, and hopefully in a few months I can posts photos of fatter, healthy loaches.

They sure ain't fat
Lots of fine chopped food in the water, as has been suggested, will give them a chance to fatten up. If they are in a tank on their ownio this is essential. If they are with other fish then they are extremely good at teasing out leftover food morsels from anywhere, but still feed them specifically until they put on more weight.

No, they certainly aren't fat, especially the bottom one. He's the one that I'm most concerned about. The only other tank mates that they have are 7 (1/2") livebearer fry who turned up in my canister filter. I've been keeping food in the tank constantly and also keeping the lights off most of the day to entice them to come out to feed.

loachmom wrote: also keeping the lights off most of the day to entice them to come out to feed.

That sounds like a good idea,

Hello All,

Just thought I'd let you know that the very skinny kuhli died today. He never gained a bit of weight and just grew more and more lethargic.

But the good news is that the crooked one is doing wonderfully. He is very active and loves to hunt for food. He's gained some weight, also.

Here are a few pictures of him.



He's on the left in this picture:

And on the right in this pic:

Here's one last picture of His Crookedness. Nobody's perfect!

The damage was already done, not your fault loachmom. You did your best!

Glad to see the crooky kuhli is well though!

wow, he looks way better than he did! well done! Very sorry about skinny kuhli - that one was painful to look at

Just curious - did they both look that way in the store? Or is it something that you gradually noticed after you had them all?

Hi zmo63,

They did look that way in the store, but I couldn't see them real well since they started darting all over the tank as soon as the lady moved the driftwood. I bought all she had, and this was what I got.

So sorry the little one didn't make it.

I'll keep rooting for the crooky one though- he's looking great!

Kate

Hello everyone,

This morning I was watching the kuhlis eat, and I was keeping an eye out for the crooked one to see how he was doing. Well, I couldn't find him, and then I realized that he was right in front of me, just that he wasn't crooked anymore.
I'm not sure why he is straightening out--maybe he had some type of deficiency that is correcting itself.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures.


P.S. please pardon my dust.

Hey that's really cool. I'm glad he is straightening out. I would agree that it was probably a deficiency of some sort.