loach newbie fascinated by hillstream loaches

[wijnands]

Hi everyone,

I'm not an aquarium newbie but, except for a small group of kuhli back in the late 1980s, I have 0 experience with loaches. My pride and joy is 70 liters, densely planted and home to some micro boraras, half a dozen T. Espei and a load of some unknown shrimp.

Recently I found myself in the shop looking in fascination at a small group of highly aerodynamic looking fish which are being sold as gastromyzon punctulatus.

Now, knowing how many identification mistakes shops make on anything more exotic than a cardinal tetra.. is this what it's supposed to be? These fish are all sold very small, 2 cm or 3/4 of an inch max.

I know shops will sell young fish at deceptively small sizes so it's difficult to make any decision based on this, I'd rather get some expert opinions. I'm contemplating getting a second tank, due to size limitations in my living room it will have to be something small. Could I use a Juwel Vio 40 (http://www.juwel-aquarium.de/en/Product ... k-Int.html) to build a suitable habitat for a few of these? Preliminary plan was 2-4 loaches, possibly some shrimp, loads of pebbles, a few plants and a lot of flow and air.

Feedback would be most welcome! I'd rather have some experts shoot this down than kill fish by attempting the impossible.

[mattyd]

I can't see anything wrong with what you have suggested. I would be wanting to ensure that the light of that little tank is bright enough to grow a good layer of algae on the rocks. If possible, maybe see if there is a Daylight 6500k bulb available that would fit into the hood.

Flow is good, but not always necessary. There are plenty of people who have successfully kept these fish without high water velocity. Personally I have one tank with similar hillstream loaches with a lot of water current, and another tank with very low water current. But in my later tank, it is highly oxygenated as I use 2x air-lifts to move the filtered water from behind a large sponge mattenfilter into the top of the tank. In both tanks I have a lot of light shining onto the rocks. Since it is a smaller tank, I would ensure that there is a lot of surface aggitation to make the water very aerated.

It is important to get fish that look really healthy. I've seen a lot of gastromyzon with what is known as 'patchy disease'. This is where their color patterns appear to be faded in areas across the fish's back. There is some information on this forum about this problem.

For feeding, get yourself a small amount of a few different types of feed. Since I am living in Australia, I don't know what brands are available where you are. However, I would suggest starting with a high quality algae tablet and also a high quality, high protein tablet -- at the least. Then get yourself two pepper grinders and place some of each feed into individual grinders. Once you have your fish in the tank, try grinding a small amount of the fishfeed into the water and stiring it in. If you turn the filter off for 5mins the crumbled feed should sink to the top of the rocks and the sandy bottom. If you feed each type 20-30mins apart you'll be able to tell if your fish prefer one type or the other. After a few months you'll be able to wean them onto other types of food.

I also highly recommend getting a colony of black worms growing in the substrate. They'll help polish off uneaten food, and provide the keen foraging fish a bit of live food every now and then. I've even seen my hillstream loaches eat live snails by bumping them upsipe-down and then biting the flesh of the snail. I feed my baby sewellia on snails that I squish into the rocks. They love it and polish off the slimy remains in no time at all. If you have too many snails, and too many worms, then you are feeding far too much.

These are only small fish, and will only grow to 4-5cm long. Even though the tank is small, you could probably increase your number to 5-6, or even 8 once you get the feeding sorted out. But it is important to get the feeding sorted. These fish are generally wild caught and are unlikely as yet to identify large sinking pellets as food (unless that is all they were feed in the petstore).

I would set up your tank with a layer of river sand on the bottom, and then 4-5 smooth fist sized rocks in the middle. Be creative, obviously. These fish can be territorial at times, so it is good to give many options for putting the shyer fish out of sight of the bossier individuals. Hence why I suggest to have a few large rocks. Then get a few smaller sized ones, and place them around the larger rocks. Then get a small handfull of river pebbles, and place them in areas as well. I recommend having a half dozen areas of just sand on the bottom. This will be areas where the fish can forage and 'stir' up the sand as they forage for ground up feed and the worms.

Do the above, and you'll have a tank that looks similar to what the edies of the mountain rivers in borneo would look like. There will be sand, and pebbles and a few larger rocks. All in about 30cm of water, between 23 and 29 degrees C, and under high levels of sunlight.

[wijnands]

OK, thanks for that. Blackworms will be a challenge, the rest is doable.

So high speed water isn't as important as getting air in.Well, air is easy, especially with juwel filters, all it takes is a venturi tube on the outflow. I've got some pondering to do. IT's between this and a densly planted aquascape.

[mattyd]

Blackworms are easy if you wanted to go that way (I am sure there are people who don't). Just find a store who can get some for you, and buy a 10-20ml of them. Then drop them all into the tank. The ones that don't move and don't disappear will be dead, and if the fish don't eat them then you can suck them back up with a syringe from a vet (or a turkey baster). The rest will burrow into the sand as soon as they can. And there they'll grow happily and multiply if you have too much food available. There will then always be some in the substrate.

Venturies don't put as much air into the water as you might think. They'll make fine bubbles, sure, but the fine bubbles have such a small surface area that I can't imagine there would be a whole lot of air exchange happening. Large amounts of water surface agitation is probably much better. Agitation can be achieved with lots of bubbles popping and the water "boiling" at the surface (from an air stone), or with a spray bar or the water pump aimed at the surface so that it gets really mixed up.

Some people have had good success with hillstream loaches in planted aquariums as well. But they generally have had plants with very broad leaves that provide food surfaces for the loaches to graze on.

[wijnands]

OK.

Well, it's not that I'm worried about blackworms, just haven't seen them here other than frozen. Main thing is these guys are mainly vegetarian but like the occasional bit of protein, preferably fresh.
Points about aeration are noted.

The tank I was looking at has a bottom area of 40 x 26 centimeters (roughly 15x10 inches). How many loaches would that hold? And is the picture that I posted correctly labeled?

[mattyd]

If you have more than a few aquarium stores near by, then one or more of them should be able to source live black worms for you. Before my collection of gastromyzon died (dragon fly lavae lived unnoticed in the tank for over 2 months) I was feeding them blackworms through a plastic pipette once a week. They'd shuffle up the glass and bite the one or two worms that were sticking out the pipette. So I decided to let some worms go in the tank. Now I frequently see the remaining sewellia in the tank shuffling across the substrate chasing the worms that I disturb for them.

The picture does look correct, or relatively so. I've always seen those fish come into stores mixed with other similar species. Some with blue or pink or yellow stripes on their fins. Some will have stripes or dots on their body, and some will have mixtures of stripes and spots.

Your proposed tank isn't a massive tank, true, but I would think you would have no problems with at least 6 in the tank. Maybe even 8 or 10. But you would need to have hiding places for them, and enough surfaces for them to graze on. My breeding tank of sewellias is only 100cm long, 28cm wide. It has 10 adults, and about 50 babies in it. Before I lost some fish to the dragonfly lavae, I had an extra 5 sewellia and 13 gastromyzon in the tank (although no babies). I never thought it was crowded, because the fish are so small that 2 can easily fit on the underside of a rock, and with a half dozen rocks, some perched on top of others, they have plenty of hiding places and feeding areas.

Remember, these guys won't often swim up and take food that is floating in the water column. They need the food to settle. Then they'll 'hover' over the food and eat it. The more surfaces that the food can fall on and get caught around, the better for the fish. Similarly, the more rocks you have, the more surfaces they'll have to hide on, and the more surfaces that the algae can grow. If you stack the rocks, then the top most rocks will be great grazing areas for algae, and the bottom rocks will be the hiding areas for the shy fish.

Look at my thread on sewellia fry, and you'll see the algae growing on the rocks. The white areas on the rocks are where I moved another rock off the top. There is a large difference in color between the algae coveing and the original stone. Although I do wish I could get rid of the green and blue beard algae that is in the tank. The fish don't touch it....

[wijnands]

OK, thanks for the feedback on tank size. I did a quick google on blackworm. It's a north-american species, not common here but not impossible to find.Getting live tubifex is far easier and that could probably fill the same purpose. I'm now running an experiment on growing algae covered pebbles outside, see how that goes.

Based on this feedback I'd say my plan is not at all impossible. Tank furniture seems easy enough, aeration can be solved with a spraybar on the filter and possibly a second pump to get some flow. I found dealextreme has a few unusually small pumps (http://www.dealextreme.com/p/pf-408-2w- ... 0hz-106129)that would get a small tank into motion without turning it into whitewater rapids. Food needs to be there in ample supply. I could handle that during the cycling period even.

On the whole this seems feasible and an interesting challenge. Now all I need to do is make up my mind if I want to go for this or an aquascape.

Thanks for the help!

[plaalye]

G. punctulatus is sometimes used as a catch-all name for gastromyzons. I'd guess the fish in the pic is g. stellatus. It's really not important as they're all kept the same. They don't need a lot of space but 15" is pretty short. I'd much prefer something like our 20 gallon long, roughly 30"x12"x12". For small tanks I like Aquaclear HOB filters. You could add something like a Koralia nano for more movement. They produce a more gentle movement than traditional powerheads. There are endless ways to go and what is available where you are, and what feels right for you are factors.I personally don't like sand and if you do manage to get some turbulence it's a problem. Lots of stones/rocks/wood for algae to grow on. Diatoms grow well on new glass also. I only clean the front. I would put your energy into getting a good growth of algae throughout the tank BEFORE you get the fish. In my experience gastromyzons are hit and miss as to whether they'll ever take given food. Some will, some will never, but it can take some time even if they do. So be sure they have Aufwuchs to graze in the event that's all they'll take. I also grow algae on rocks in a tank on my deck in the summer, rotating rocks as they clean them. They're great fish, one of my favorites! Good luck with them.

[NancyD]

I'm pretty new to hillstreams too but I was concerned about feeding them as well. There's is a newer gel food that mine were eating before I got them. It's Repashy Soilent Green, an auf wuchs substitute. I think you're not in the US but it's worth checking Kensfish, he ships internationally.

I also leave my lights on for longer than "normal" to encourage various algae on rocks & glass. I have plants too but never see the loaches graze on leaves like my stiphodon gobies do. I leave the water level down an inch or 2 so the HOBs' return flow splashes & have a powerhead too. Your tank size seems little undersized, I know some people use a 30 inch tank but is a Juwel at least that long? (US vs metric, lol)