How to indenting yo-yo loaches gender

[BBfishes]

I have three yo-yo loaches, I’m down sizing the tank and want to get rid of one but would like to keep a male and female. The medium sized yo-yo has a rounder belly as if lately. Makes me suspect it is a female. A larger one follows her around everywhere. Then there is a smaller one that kind wanders by its self and occasionally gets in a rolling rough housing with the other two. Do you think the two that stick together are the same gender or likely potentially breeding pair?

 

[Colin_T]

Female loaches generally grow bigger than males and have a fatter belly than males.

Yoyo Loaches need to be kept in groups of 6 or more. The reason the third loach gets into fights is because there are not enough loaches in the tank. If you get rid of the third loach, the remaining two might get along, but they might fight.

Ideally, if you have a big enough tank, you would add 4 or 5 more loaches so there was a decent sized group. However, this can go bad if the original fish do not like the new fish.

 

[Byron]

Colin is bang on here. The interaction you have described is most likely normal behaviours. Loaches are highly social fish, and they will establish an hierarchy. The "alpha" fish will be a female. The loaches will interact and attempt to establish dominance or not within the group, this is normal. But you really should have five or more for this to play out well.

Depending how long the three have been together, it may or may not be successful adding another two or three. But removing one of the three would be cruel to the fish.

 

[BBfishes]

Female loaches generally grow bigger than males and have a fatter belly than males.

Yoyo Loaches need to be kept in groups of 6 or more. The reason the third loach gets into fights is because there are not enough loaches in the tank. If you get rid of the third loach, the remaining two might get along, but they might fight.

Ideally, if you have a big enough tank, you would add 4 or 5 more loaches so there was a decent sized group. However, this can go bad if the original fish do not like the new fish.

Is it okay to just have one loach?

 

[DoubleDutch]

Is it okay to just have one loach?

"Highly social fish" is the answer

 

[Byron]

Is it okay to just have one loach?

As Colin, DoubleDutch and I all said, no, you need a group. I would consider five absolute minimum. With just one, you are really subjecting the poor loach to a very unfavourable situation, and the loach which expects to be in a group is not going to understand why this is not occurring.