Sorry this will be long. So I've always had a love for the uncommon or oddball fish that takes its own set up and requires just a bit extra care. A few years back I came across a few Reticulated Hillstream Loachs in an LFS. After watching them for a while I was amazed by there colors and how they glided through the water almost like a stingray after talking to the LFS owner I got some more info on them and realized they would need a special tank and since at the time I only owned a community tank I gave the idea up and moved on.
Well after the last few years and getting a lot more tanks and experience I once again came across this really cool fish and now I want to give it a try.
Because I love reading and researching I have read a ton on these guys and have the tank pretty well figured out but it never hurts to have someone with first hand experience to give me advice so I figured I'd post on here and see what happens
So for the tank I have a 34 gallon that's 36 inches long 12 inches wide and 17 inches tall.
My plan is to build a stream set up that mimics a continual one way current of water instead of the normal tumbling current made by a power head.
After reading up on how to do this I will use half inch pvc pipe to build a square frame that will have inlets on one side of the tank with sponges on them and outlets on the other side of the tank connected to two or three power heads. This should produce a single current that mimics a stream perfectly.
I'm planing on a simple bottom substate of small round river pebbles and sand with a few larger round river rocks and possibly some drift wood with Java and Anubias on it.
The tank will be located in my fish room in the basement and it will have a heater but the heater will be set very low so the tank will hopefully maintain a low cold water stream temp.
As for stocking I will try to find a Reticulated Hillstream pair or possibly two females and a single male.
I will also add a school of 10 or so White Mountain Minnows and a school of 10 Zebra Danios.
Filtration for this tank will be a diy 5 gallon bucket filter I built that will have ceramic media and sponge filtration.
So what my ultramit goal for this tank is to creat an oxygen rich stream environment that will house these awesome fish in a tank that's as close to there natural habitat as possible.
I'd love to breed these fish and help them become more popular and available to the hobby without endangering wild specimens.
There's still a lot unknown about these fish and sadly they are often sold as a community fish which they are not so I'd also like to in the future help new comers just like myself learn and care for these fish as best as we can.
So questions I have are these.
Have any of you kept these fish before?
If you have any tips or tricks to them would be greatly appreciated.
How did you set up your tank?
Did you find them easy to feed on store bought foods or do they do best on a diet of algae grown in the tank?
Any breeding succes or advice stories would be awesome.
Thanks guys for reading this super long thread and thank you in advance for any and all advice
Well after the last few years and getting a lot more tanks and experience I once again came across this really cool fish and now I want to give it a try.
Because I love reading and researching I have read a ton on these guys and have the tank pretty well figured out but it never hurts to have someone with first hand experience to give me advice so I figured I'd post on here and see what happens
So for the tank I have a 34 gallon that's 36 inches long 12 inches wide and 17 inches tall.
My plan is to build a stream set up that mimics a continual one way current of water instead of the normal tumbling current made by a power head.
After reading up on how to do this I will use half inch pvc pipe to build a square frame that will have inlets on one side of the tank with sponges on them and outlets on the other side of the tank connected to two or three power heads. This should produce a single current that mimics a stream perfectly.
I'm planing on a simple bottom substate of small round river pebbles and sand with a few larger round river rocks and possibly some drift wood with Java and Anubias on it.
The tank will be located in my fish room in the basement and it will have a heater but the heater will be set very low so the tank will hopefully maintain a low cold water stream temp.
As for stocking I will try to find a Reticulated Hillstream pair or possibly two females and a single male.
I will also add a school of 10 or so White Mountain Minnows and a school of 10 Zebra Danios.
Filtration for this tank will be a diy 5 gallon bucket filter I built that will have ceramic media and sponge filtration.
So what my ultramit goal for this tank is to creat an oxygen rich stream environment that will house these awesome fish in a tank that's as close to there natural habitat as possible.
I'd love to breed these fish and help them become more popular and available to the hobby without endangering wild specimens.
There's still a lot unknown about these fish and sadly they are often sold as a community fish which they are not so I'd also like to in the future help new comers just like myself learn and care for these fish as best as we can.
So questions I have are these.
Have any of you kept these fish before?
If you have any tips or tricks to them would be greatly appreciated.
How did you set up your tank?
Did you find them easy to feed on store bought foods or do they do best on a diet of algae grown in the tank?
Any breeding succes or advice stories would be awesome.
Thanks guys for reading this super long thread and thank you in advance for any and all advice
