Loach is missing

[muggerdog@hotmail.com]

I am feeling pretty stupid. I am new to the fish world and have three tanks. A twenty gallon with one betta, thirteen assorted tetra's, dwarf catfish, and a Pleco. The second tank is a twenty with a really cool divider my husband made so I can have my other two Betta's in the same tank and them not kill eachother. This tank has on one side a pair of Dojo Loaches , three fancy guppies, and two plecos. The other side has three danios, three ? one ghost cast fish and a pleco. And of course in each side a Betta. The third tank is just three weeks old and is a 62 gallon. In case you are wondering abou the twenty with the divider, I had not even dreamed of having this third large tank. It has 12 tetras and one loach. I just got the loach a four days ago. He was very active and seemed to be eating well and out all the time. I have not seen this loach in two days. There seems to be some bacterial thing attacking one of my tetras, so the guy at the pet store has me treating the water with melafix and some fish food that has medicine in the food. I have been putting sinking pellets in for the loach. Any ideas where my loach may have gone?

[plaalye]

What kind of filter do you have? I had a single yoyo loach in a tnk before I found out(on this forum) that they needed to be kept in groups. I used to find him in the filter fairly often. He obviously wasn't happy.

[helen nightingale]

do you know what type of loach it is?

what type of substrate does the tank have?

loaches can be very good at hiding! Plaalye is right - most loaches need plenty of loaches of the same species as company, so it could have hidden as it it is feeling very insequre and lonely.

what are your plans for the big tank? will you transfer some of the fish from your smaller tanks to the new tank?

[muggerdog@hotmail.com]

My Loach is an Angelicus Botia. I have and under gravel filter at this time. As for my plans for this tank, I am going to the pet store today to see if he has any more of these little guys and maybe get him some friends. Hopefully his is just in hiding. I got up last night with a flash light and look around the tank. He was still no where to be found. I would like to put some powder blue gorami's in this tank and I don't really know what else. My amonia, nitrite and nitrate levels have all just finished the cylce of peaking and dropping, so now it is just a matter of what to put in. I refuse to buy from PetCo or PetSmart, so am limited to two fish stores. The one has a large variety,(they are never willing to help me), and the other one not much.

[Mark in Vancouver]

Many stories have emerged of loaches managing to squeeze beneath under-gravel filters. Kuhlis are notorious for this. It's one of the reasons we generally advise against this type of filter.

[muggerdog@hotmail.com]

Thanks for attempting to help me with my missing loach. I really thought I had a problem. It turns out that he is a tiger angelicus botia. Not a clown loach either. They are very social and when alone apparently hide in the substrate. I bought a tiger and a leopard to put in my tank yesterday. From PetSmart, against my better judgement. Just twenty minutes later, all three loaches are out messing around in the tank.

[plaalye]

Glad you found it. Do you have any pictures of these new fish? Angelicus (Kubotai) I get, but the tiger/leopard part is a new one. Common names can be confusing. Hopefully they are all just Kubotai with different markings