I'm pretty late to the party. However, I wanted to say thank you for this fantastic tutorial of the beloved kuhli loach... I have 6 in my 40 gallon heavily planted community tank and 2 of the 4 are heavily heavily gravid with eggs. One in particular looks like she could be in pain from how her poor belly has shifted, stretched and is beyond translucent! She spends her days using a large established watersprite as a hammock for her massive belly. The other is large as well, but seems far more tolerant of her size. I've been in the hobby for 30 years and I just love these darling, peaceful animals.... Well, with the one exception that if I'm not careful to feed a little extra when the lights go out when my shrimp are coming to the end of being berried I risk losing newborns and end up with only 1 or 2 shrimp from each clutch. Which can be very disappointing, but it's totally my fault as I'm fully aware of how to help prevent or reduce loss in such a heavily planted aquarium. And, let's face it, if that's the ONLY complaint I can muster they are really just the best fish for so many reasons.
Thank you very much for your kind comment. Yeah they are amazing fish, such great wee characters hey. Are you sure she's egg bound and not otherwise bloated? I might be tempted to try feeding some live baby Brine Shrimp and see if that helps at all. Usually with shrimp we tend to have more than we notice once they're established as you'll know so hopefully more shrimplets are surviving than you're fearing. That said the Kuhlis are pretty quick and expert hunters. You could always set up a small grow out tank and add your berried females to it the put the shrimp back in the main tank when they're big enough for the loach to ignore. If you're running an air stone already you'd only have to split the line to also run a sponge/box filter in the grow out tank and add a heater, not too much additional equipment to worry about. Sure you know all that already but just thought I'd try to give you an idea to help your shrimp colony thrive.
@@DanielKeepingFish My pleasure!! And, thank you sincerely for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. I am a bit busy at the moment but I have a few thoughts to throw your way. Maybe you'll have a better idea or suggestions that I'm just not thinking of. I'll respond again very soon... As time is of the essence with both my kuhli's full of eggs and at least 2 of my coy's have laid in the past couple days. Again, thank you for your thoughtfulness. I'm looking forward to networking with you!
@@anga9495 no worries Ang. Same here, pretty full tilt at the moment in real life so if I don't answer right away it won't be through being rude. I will answer soon as I can but also we don't get notifications for every comment for some reason. If I don't respond and you think it's been missed please hit me up again perhaps as a comment on another video. I don't know why RU-vid does that but I will always try to respond as soon as I can and as best I can as long as I see it.
We love these guys Daniel it’s been along time since we’ve had any were thinking of getting some for our betta of tanks actually they are so awesome because they are so small …. Definitely super cute….hahahaha made that comment to Greg before you said it….that was the worst 😆😆people always did it too….they have so super cute faces but not as cute a face as our beloved Ropes close though 😀😀❤️❤️
Hahaha... even if I did take a liking to a specific one I'd never have the guts to ask a fish store employee to try catch it in fear of receiving the death stare off them. 🤣
HI Danny... I was looking at some of these just over the weekend. They are super cute and fun to watch not to mention they are a great addition to a cleaning crew!!
They are both of those things Deb and lots more besides. Such a great fish. Would definitely recommend grabbing a wee group and you will enjoy them no doubt.
My kuhli loaches devour snails. I had a tank full of bladders, ramshorn, and trumpets. The kuhlis demolished the rams and bladder snails and left only the small, hard to eat, burrowing trumpet snails.
Thank you Luc. I try to cover everything I think I might be looking for in a video when researching something so you saying there was a lot of detail really means a lot.
If kept with some cichlids they are hunted in the aquarium as food, they just look like worm moving. I love seeing them though , they are really neat. Saw some babies in an aquarium recently , they looked so different. Like huge worms moving in the aquarium. I love the ones here, the colors are really impressive
I heard they were a food source for humans once. Imagine they would have needed to have been caught or farmed in huge numbers to have enough for a family meal.
They are the worst Greg….in college I worked at a pet shop and we used to joke around and say to our fellow coworkers “hope everyone asks for loaches from you today today” it especially ridiculous when someone wanted a very “specific” one even though we couldn’t tell a difference between them😆😆
Thanks very much bud. Drop a couple of Indian Almond leaves in the front corner of the tank if you can. Wee bit of algae wafer in front of them and dim the lights in the room. Might encourage them out. 👍
I have the Black Kuhli's. I've never seen fish that can sniff food out as fast as they do. Within 5 to 10 seconds of food hitting the surface, and floating towards the bottom. They rush out from their rocks and wood, and fly along the bottom for all the food.
Dear Daniel: How do you avoid scratching the glass in an aquarium with a sand substrate? I hope to set one up, soon. Multiple species are labeled “kuhli loach,” but Pangio kuhlii is most common. Black kuhli loaches (Pangio oblonga) and silver kuhli loaches (Pangio anguillaris) are sometimes available. Thank you for sharing this informative and interesting profile of a group of species that are too cute. I hope to keep some, again. All my best, Sincerely, E. J. Brinegar
Thanks very much E. J. I've never really had a problem with sand scratching the glass. You just got to be careful not to rub anything across the glass if there's a chance grains may be present. I don't use magnetic algae scrapers on tanks with sand. I do it manually scraping top to bottom rather than horizontally so any sand should get knocked down in front of the scraper rather than dragged across the glass and stop if I feel anything that may be a grain. I also inspect the glass first to see if I can notice any grains stuck to the glass before proceeding. Not exact science but hope that's some help to you bud.
Yes, this helps. Someone suggested using a razor blade between the sand and glass. Someone else said to use a plastic "scrubby" instead of filter floss. Thank you for your assistance.
The smallest of my kuhli loaches... just rises up where the food is from under the gravel... I CANNOT wait for him to grow up so siphoning isn't so stressful for me.. kuhli loaches and my good morning talkers (sparkling gourami)
I love their little faces with their barbels. They love to hide during the day, but if you add 1-2 inches of leaf litter they will hide under the leaves, and will even breed under the leaves. Catappa, oak, maple, magnolia leaves all dried and sterilized organic (no pesticides nor fertilizers) can be added. To sterilize the leaves if collected by yourself and ot gotten online, you wash them and soak over night, then place them on a baking sheet and place in an over set to 150-200F until crisp. You will see more natural behavior from these comediens.
Haha.. they do. Honestly I can't remember but you see them pretty often in stores and on line. Bet you'll find them on Amazon. They're for shrimp really so you should adjust your search accordingly.
Possibly but in my experience they're more likely to hide and set up base underneath the filter. Doesn't meat you'll see them any more but at least you can relax that they are safe. 😉
Can i keep this kulhi loaches in open tank without lid, i keep my guppies and mollys in that, they haven't jumped in that, i have kept water level low, does they really Jump high
Personally I wouldn't risk it. They dart about super fast and could get some distance on a leap I reckon. Not that they'd do it all the time but if something spooked them or something like that I'm sure they could get out.
