Calm down Hillstream loaches!

[mpeterb]

I've read (and observed, if you can call it that) that certain hillstream loaches are vey shy, and just run for cover whenever someone walks by or (god forbid) looks in the tank. I've seen the same thing happen with certain cories. I imagine the fact that as far as they're concerned they find all of their own food with no help from me doen't help. Has anyone ever come up with a way to alleviate this?

I just want to look at them.

Maybe some kind of scarecrow? I don't want to stress them to death, just get them unafraid of people looking at them.

[Dirk_H.]

Hello,

I got the same problem with my Beaufortia sp.
My girlfriend get other hillstream loaches and one of these fishes I can feed with little redworms in a pincette. It's very funny.

But my little fishes are "afraidbunnies".

Greetz
Dirk

[Jim Powers]

Do you have any other fish in the tank?
Sometimes it helps to have schooling fish of some type swimming about the tank. This often makes the hillstreams (and other loaches for that matter) more secure and thus more likely to come out.
However, this will not always work with some hillstream species.
From my experience, beaufortia, sinogastromyzon and most of the homaloptera species tend to be shy regardless.
Gastromyzons and Pseudogastromyzon cheni are some of the less shy hillstream species.

[Dirk_H.]

Hello,

in my tank are for unfortunally only male Beaufortia sp. and ten Tanichthys albonubes. Okay, the last named fishes plays the most time by themselfes.

My girlfriend have many more fishes in her tank. You can get it right, Jim, maybe is this the reason for the shyness.

Best regards
Dirk

[mpeterb]

Do you have any other fish in the tank?
Sometimes it helps to have schooling fish of some type swimming about the tank. This often makes the hillstreams (and other loaches for that matter) more secure and thus more likely to come out.
However, this will not always work with some hillstream species.
From my experience, beaufortia, sinogastromyzon and most of the homaloptera species tend to be shy regardless.
Gastromyzons and Pseudogastromyzon cheni are some of the less shy hillstream species.

I have 3 Beaufortia kweichowensis, 9 glass catfish and a bamboo shrimp in the river tank. The glass cats get nervous sometimes and hide together underneath a large piece of drift wood, but they come right out if I drop some food in, or even just wait a minute. They seem to provide no comfort to the hillstreams.

I know it seems silly, but I'm seriously considering a scarecrow type thing. I'm just a moving sillouette to these fish anyway, so maybe a carboard cut out rigged to move back and forth gently in front of the tank? It seems silly, I know, but when you consider that in this hobby I have deliberately brought mosquitoe larvae into my house, and spent probably days rinsing pebbles and sand, this is almost normal.

[Martin Thoene]

Beaufortia are naturally a shy species. I've have one left from a group of 3 I got nearly 8 years ago and it's still skittish despite sharing a tank with various Gastromyzon, Pseudogastromyzon and Sewellia species who are quite bold. Having dither fish in the tank changed nothing in behaviour.

Martin.