How tough are coolies?

[guppler]

I'm still trying to decide what types of fish I can put in my 30 gallon comunity tank of mostly boy guppies. I think I've seen Coolie or Kuhli for the spelling, but I'm interested in the eely little loaches. I saw some and kind of wanted them before I even got my guppies. I've read that loaches have no scales and can be scratched easily, which worries me because the last time I tried putting a female betta in with my guppies, she got injured, and i think it was from scratching herself on a rough spot while trying to squeaze through a space in one of my home made ceramic decorations. I was thinking the koolies would look neat slithering though the spaces, but i don't want them to get scrathed. As far as i know none of my other fish have been hurt by my decorations, in fact the guppies and danios love them.
I'm also wondering if koolies would like my mostly medium to large gravel and if they get big enough or aggressive enough to bother guppies and Endlers. Most of mine are hibrids, and pretty small. Oh, and how dependent are they on live food? Can I get by with mostly dry stuff?

 

[LadyMinion]

I don't know a great deal about kuhlis, but I do know that if you get some you'll very rarely see them. They like to hide.

I believe they would prefer a sandy substrate as they do enjoy burrowing. As for feeding, they are omnivorous and enjoy bloodworm and shrimp pellets. Any sinking meaty foods really.

If you want to see shy fish come out a bit more, invest in a tub of JMC catfish pellets - I've never seen a fish that doesn't go crazy for 'em.

 

[guppler]

hmm...
So they won't eat my guppies, will they?
(I don't know how I posted on the wrong board, I'm sure i meant to put it on oddballs. Maybe i forgot to switch after looking up something else.)
I don't mind so much if they hide a little. I read that they like to be fed after dark because they're nocturnal and that they stick flourescent green eggs to the plants in the middle of the night.
I'm also thinking about how their lack of scales might affect the way I treat infections, because my guppies have been getting pretty frequent fin rot and occasional dropsy.
Has anyone got any ideas on how easily kuhlies get injured?
Does it work to vacuum sand? I get a lot of gravel up my vacuum and I wouldn't want to loose all my sand or suck a fish out of it.

 

[clutterydrawer]

No offence but I think you need to work out why your guppies get illso much. Is you tank overstocked? Or are they just weak stock or summat? I imagine that if you had scaleless fish eg kuhlis, you'd have to halve the dose of any meds you put in, which might affect the healing

To clean sand you need to hover over it with the vac rather than stick the vac right into it like you might with gravel. this way the debris gets sucked up but the sand, which is heavier, doesn't. It seems odd that you get gravel up the vac tho - are you using an actual gravel vac with a funnel-shaped end, or jsut a siphon?

They won't eat your guppies, they get to around 4" and this is in the right section anyway as kuhli loaches are Cyprinids. If you want them to be out and about a bit more, get 3-4 of them.

 

[Teelie]

Khulis are also fairly delicate it seems. It's hard to find any at the moment as they keep dying.

 

[Lateral Line]

Kuhli loaches, (there are several species), are pretty docile. They will not attack guppies etc. They prefer a sandy substrate, but are adaptable. Keep several, you'll see them more.

It is never a good idea to have sharp/rough edged objects in your tank, if you have such, you should consider modifying them.

You don't give us much to go on, but Danios... if you don't have a large enough group of Danios, several species can be quite nippy, and fighters, male or female, are easy targets.

 

[xXMrBonesXx]

i never see my kuhli's since tehy got moved from my 32 gallon to my 65 gallon, well i see 1 at feeding around midnight and sometimes the other, my friend .. her's are always swimming around for some strange reason (shes weird so teh kuhli's must be watching her to much ), i only have 2 at teh moment but plan on more once i get them more room so they can hide together

 

[Whiskerz]

i never see my kuhli's since tehy got moved from my 32 gallon to my 65 gallon, well i see 1 at feeding around midnight and sometimes the other, my friend .. her's are always swimming around for some strange reason (shes weird so teh kuhli's must be watching her to much ), i only have 2 at teh moment but plan on more once i get them more room so they can hide together

my fish maybe weird, but im not

I love my khuli's, they entertain me

 

[guppler]

Well, I still think I want kuhlis, but i might not be ready for them yet.

As for the questions about the gravel vac and the sick guppies:
My gravel vacs are basically siphon tubes with a wider tube (about and inch) at the in end. One has a wide tube about 8 inches long and the other is the improved version with a wide tube about a foot long and a trap door in the connector thing.
The gravel usually goes up and down without getting stuck, but the snails get sucked up and cause clogs and some of my tanks have decorative additions that might be a little more trouble than they're worth. I have these plastic sparklies that are lighter than gravel so they rest on top and those get stuck in the connector hole and reduce or stop suction, and then I have some plastic shiny fake rock type things that are just the right size to almost get stuck in the widest part of the tube. sometimes if i'm not careful one of those goes in and slowly creeps up the tube, trapping any gravel that might have gone up with it. Maybe ai should try the hover over the substrate method anyway and see how that works.
The guppies probably are a little over crowded. Dot had aboy 50 kids at a time four months in a row, but I didn't even try to get an official count after the first time she did that. I also divided the tank right away, but they can store'em for a while, and Tiger the tiny Endler kept sneaking past the divider. My policy now is that girls stay in the girl tanks unless i want to breed them and as soon as I'm sure a fry is male i move him to the comunity tank. Since Big Mama Dot died a little over a year ago I've never had more than 3 born at a time, but I haven't gotten around to selling them either. they could be nipping fins and starting infections, but mostly i probably just need to reduce the numbers and keep them a little cleaner. (I've been generally improving the smoothness of my homemade ornaments too.)

 

[guppler]

Oh, about the danios and fighters:
I didn't have the danios the yet when Noel went in the comunity tank, but I supose the guppies could have nipped her. My Endlers are pretty agressive, but her injury looked too big to be caused by a fish almost small enough for her to eat.