My new chain loaches

[Alien Anna]

Hi Everyone,
after fretting yesterday that I'd killed them all, I can now see two in my tank swimming about looking perfectly healthy (despite one getting trapped in the filter and the other being out of the water while I cleaned the tank). The third is still missing (hasn't been seen since I released them into the tank) but now I have hope.

I find this new fish business very stressful - I wish I'd known they were tiny, skinny and hid in every crevice. Didn't have all these problems when I bought a pair of sailfin mollies the other month!

I definitely want an Eheim Ecco for Christmas - anyone have any trouble with external filters and loaches?

P.S. The other good news is that the loaches are trying to eat snails, although most of the snails are bigger than them. I found two empty snail shells in my tank this morning - the evil type of the snail that's been eating my plants. Maybe the snails have met their nemesis. Next time Tri-Mar have some chain loaches in, I'm in there - if I have to buy a bigger tank to accomodate them as they grow, so be it.

 

[suemack]

hi anna - had the joy of living with 2 dwarf chain loaches for about a year - I originally got 6 and sadly lost 4 of them - combination of factors (they were tiny and skinny,they'd only just arrived at LFS AND my tanks was too new) 2 of them survived and thrived - they were delightful and very cheeky. Loved frozen bloodworms and to tease the other fish in the tank (esp the cories). They didn't grow very big - about 1 1/2 inches but their colour was amazing - they liked to have a place to play hide and seek with each other. They never did get very fond of flakes or pellets, ate little snails or squished bigger ones from my other tanks.

Had no health problems with them though they would get stressed and slightly faded looking if I was a bit late with w/changes. Very sadly the power was accidently turned off in the tank by a friend looking after my place and the filter and heater were off for about 12 hours. They looked very sick for a couple of days after that, not interested in feeding, did loads of small w/changes but they died. Haven't seen them in our LFS since - but would definately have them again as they were real characters

regards - sue