Some background: I started my tank with 2 corys, and 2 kuhli's (the size of a tiny pen), one of the kuhli's died on an artifical ornament, decapitating itself in a tag hole after overgrowing it, shortly after I picked up two more and started the transition into a totally natural tank. About two months later one of the corys died, leaving me with one, really depressed cory. During all this time my kuhli's were moderately active. About a month later I picked up two more peppered corys as I was afraid the last remaining would die from stress and a lack of companionship. The kuhlii's are now the size of small sausages. Very soon after this the kuhli's became less active, seemingly unwilling to forage during daylight -I can only assume- because of the corys rampant foraging on their turf. So another few months went by (this past week) and I decided to transfer the corys to another tank. Since doing this the kuhli's are almost never visible during the day...and I know this is usually normal behavior for this species, but I'm just wondering what would cause such a drastic change in temperment? I NEVER see them anymore, at all. I'm not concerned they're not getting food, as I usually add some just before turning lights off..but why did one of my most entertaining fish just suddenly go off the radar? I used to at least catch them in the AM foraging before I turned the lights on, now it seems like they're permanently hidden amongst the leaves of my amazon sword.
Here's a video of some of the frequent behavior I used to see. Please excuse the tank, this was taken about 4 months ago. =P
part of the problem is that the loaches as they grow in age move more into their natural habits, as well as they are more comfortable in and around the natural growth you have, loaches are generally a nocturnal species and they tend to only come out at night when the odds of predation are less, understandable that you want to have it the way it was when you first set up your tank, it's nice to see those little guys moving around much more, one thing you may want to think about doing is that you a few of them is upgrade to a bigger tank where they have more room to roam so to speak, they do get pretty decent sized and as you said they are the size of small sausages and will eventually need more space. if you have more space you may see them roaming around a bit more than usual also add more plants that are stalky, and tall this will allow you to view the loaches moving around the bottom of the tank as they forage for food, if you have amazon swords with leaves tight to the bottom of the tank this will block your view of their motion.
Hope this helps.
Brandon
I had a similar problem with these guys. I agree with Brandon. It's their natural behavior to stay hidden in the day time. Maybe if you had more you would get more veiwing time, but yea, that means to be responsible you'd need more room I guess.
Yeah I guess you're both right. I suppose in purchasing these I was playing with too many minimum numbers, and really pushing the 20gal minimum as a 16gal.
I had just expected them to remain playful in daylight despite their noctournal instincts. Loaches.com put the minimum stock at 3 kuhlis and considering the total number of fish I have, well, 3 is really all I could afford to get without doing water changes every 3 days. I'm sure if I could add a couple more it might renew some of their playfulness, but that's not really an option. They do seem satisfied in 4gal short of the minimum however I'm sure with something double the length and a little more than half as high they'd probably have a bit more territory to cross from time to time.
It does make sense that at about the time they reached 'adulthood' they started becoming very incognito.
Living in an apartment complex I'm already kinda maxed out at 3 aquariums. The gf forbids anymore, including my HEAVY impulses to buy a $800 34gal marine kit. :(
She actually owns a 75gal which remains in her moms basement....have any idea how hard it is to resist dragging it over here in my car? lol I don't think that'd be an advisable amount of weight on the 3rd floor in a 20+ yr old building...and can't imagine the catastrophe if it somehow sprung a leak while away for a few days...
Anyway, thanks for the input, as always.
Women! At least you're not smoking crack, being a violent alcoholic, or spending all your time at the bar. Why don't they just realise a good thing when they have it? When I let my GF and her kids live with me she was jealous of my fish. It's like she thought I gave my fish more attention than I gave her.
Haha! I told her when I start sleeping with them, taking them out for breakfast at Dennys, and throwing $2000 funerals for each fish death, she can start worrying. She wasn't satisfied..go figure. lol
I was gona say some things about my trainwreck skinny African pussycat! I think I'll keep it to myself and make it sound better than it really is. HaHa ha ha It's a messed up relationship to say the LEAST.
fail/aids is epic... lol... it mean that the idea or whatever is a failure and aids... so you say... "you're so epic fail/aids" it's kind of an insult, but with a hole lot of humor...
you guy's should check out the forum i come from...
