Pakistani Loach Tank-mates

[deni]

Yesterday my husband and I bought two very lively baby Pakistani loaches for our 20 gallon tank. We wanted loaches as love watching them but not clowns as they will grow too big for our tank eventually. ATM we have five silver-tipped tetras, a pair of Emperor tetras, two fully grown SAEs and two glowlights. Most of the tetras we have had for 2-3 years (we had 7 glowlights orginally), some are part of our original tank set-up from when we were 'newbies' so we are very attached to them.

We know that the loaches are likely to get aggressive as they get older and it's better (and more fun!) to have a bigger group but our tank's pretty full right now. Would it be OK to introduce up to 3 more Pakistani loaches later on (we would eventually like to have danios or dwarf neon rainbows with them) or should we change the tank set up now and see if our local fish shop will take our other fish?

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Deni

 

[pieman]

Just about your glowlights, were they eaten by the other fish?

 

[deni]

Just about your glowlights, were they eaten by the other fish?

No, some time ago three of them went a faded colour, stopped eating and died within a couple of weeks of each other, and our male Emperor tetra went sick too. We treated the tank with an anti-bacteria treatment and no more fish died, and the Emperor tetra actually recovered and is still alive and kicking a year later. The others just disappeared more recently, we assume they died and were then eaten by the other fish before we could get them out of the tank.

 

[bobf]

Hi there!

Interesting thread here all about Pakistani loaches - can grow to 8" apparently, depending upon exactly which 'form' you have.

Pakistani Loaches