Help with a rescued YoYo Loach please!

[TropicalBen]

Hi all,

Bit of a long story this so I'll keep it as short as I can:

I am currently cycling my new 60L Aquarium, watching the levels every few days and everything seems to be heading the right way! Great! So yesterday we went to a pet store just to get a couple live plants in the aquarium, we ended up getting some small moss balls and another little plant to go alongside some other fake plants etc. So the tank looks great and we are happy with the coverage etc.

However... as we emptied the bag that the plants were in, we spotted a small fish in the very corner of the plastic bag the plants were in, he was in the corner with the tiniest amount of water that had just come off the plants when placed in the bag! How he survived the 30 minute journey home I have no idea. With some research we discovered it is a YoYo Loach (weirdly it was a fish I was thinking of getting when the tank was fully cycled). We turned the light of the tank off and very gently introduced him into the tank. This aquarium is not really ready for fish yet, but our thinking was at least if he goes into the aquarium he has a chance at survival!

48 ish hours later he is happy and swimming, we have a few algae wafers down for him. I'm sure he isn't out of the woods yet but he has definitely survived longer than he very nearly didn't! What do you experienced people recommend I do in terms of the cycling from here? Just continue monitoring? Also, when ready, what other fish would you recommend? I know that the YoYo can grow a bit, if this guy survives I'd like to get him a friend but don't want to crowd the tank.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Byron]

You are not likely to welcome this advice, but it is in the best interest of the poor fish. Return it to the store.

Loaches are highly social fish, and they are a shoaling species. This means they must be in a group, and soon; with a group, an hierarchy will form within days usually, and if this does not occur, the lone fish will be seriously stressed and this causes various problems down the road. Often such a loach will withdraw and simply weaken to the point of death; other times it may become very aggressive. One thing is certain, it cannot have a normal healthy life alone, or with two or even three. There must be five or more, but this brings us to the problem of the tank size.

A 60 liter is 15 gallons, so I will assume no longer that 24 inches/60 cm, and this is much tyo small for a group of loaches. This species will attain around 4 inches, but it needs space to swim in--and they can often be active swimmers, as they chase one another around almost like playing tag. The social aspect is significant.