Kuhli Loaches: What's The Longest A Loach Was Missing?

[miriena]

Xoedusk and I got some kuhli loaches yesterday, and they were frolicking in the tank like the psychedelic worms they are, all three of them. They were eating and in general, doing all right. Today, we could only find two of them, one is hiding somewhere. I know they bury themselves in sand, and we do have sand as the substrate. So, what the longest you've been missing a kuhli loach? I'm just being paranoid, I think, but I worry that the guy buried himself and died, or got stuck somewhere I guess if he's alive he'll come up when he's hungry, huh?

We checked the filter, btw, no loach there

 

[Shaun]

Have you got any driftwood/ornaments in the tank which he could get up inside?

 

[miriena]

Have you got any driftwood/ornaments in the tank which he could get up inside?

There are two pieces of wood, one is solid, one is cave-like, the kuhlis like going there, so that was the first place we checked. We made them some caves also, but we looked inside those. I think that unless they are SUPER good at hiding between slate pieces, they are in the sand... We worry about squishing them, Xoedusk is adding moss to the rock today and so one of the pieces of slate is to be lifted up and then set back down (but it rests on top of two more pieces of slate, so I think it might be allright...).

 

[Shaun]

Ok, good luck in finding him!

 

[miriena]

Ok, good luck in finding him!

a-ha, thanks! I just hope he's alive. Poor, poor cute kuhli...

 

[miriena]

Well, although my question still stands out of curiousity, I should say that we found the poor loach.

I said we checked the filter, and we did, but I guess not well enough. He was right at the bottom of the filter, where all the inserts are, and how he got there is a mystery. Presumably, if he went through the tube along with the water flow, he would have been hurt by the spinning blades, and if he went up the little waterfall out of the filter (against water flow), then he's just crazy, the current is pretty strong. If the latter happened, not sure how to prevent the same thing from happening again...

But he is alive and supposedly well, looking for food... Hope he didn't suffer internal injuries.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

i had one go missing for somewhere between 6 months and a year. black khuli in brown substrate plus high traffic area equals missing fish

 

[xoedusk]

Well, although my question still stands out of curiousity, I should say that we found the poor loach.

I said we checked the filter, and we did, but I guess not well enough. He was right at the bottom of the filter, where all the inserts are, and how he got there is a mystery. Presumably, if he went through the tube along with the water flow, he would have been hurt by the spinning blades, and if he went up the little waterfall out of the filter (against water flow), then he's just crazy, the current is pretty strong. If the latter happened, not sure how to prevent the same thing from happening again...

But he is alive and supposedly well, looking for food... Hope he didn't suffer internal injuries.

Click here to see exactly he was found.

 

[ox5477]

Poor little guy... I hope he got knocked out by the impeller so that he didnt have to starve to death in the filter. My little guys disappear and then when I put in food, all of a sudden my rock work comes alive! They all show up and gobble up the food and then go back under the rocks. It is quite cool to watch

EDIT: Just saw other post, I didn't realize he survived! Glad to hear that he did!

 

[lozronz]

Felt quite guilty a while back when I found Kuhlis and javas that I had lost for months (I always think Kuhli would be a good name for a band for some reason!)

About 5 months ago I bought (labelled) Ghost shrimp which turned out to be Long-armed Shimp and didn't do enough research on them!

They were fine for a month or so but then almost over night turned into really horrible predators and killed lots of fish (embarrased to say I didn't notice for a day or two) and by the time I bought and set up a tank they had been busy.

All the fish in danger were moved to the new tank but I could not find the Kuhlis anywhere so I assumed being the smallest in the tank that they had gone first.

The shrimp got huge (tail to pincer 20cm or so) in the original tank and very viscious, there were 5, now there are three cos they eat each other apparently aswell.

Last move around of the tank I lifted some bogwood and found all 3 Kulhlis and 2 java hudled together, poor things must have been dicing with death everyday!

Glad to say they are all doing well in the safe tank now... But Jeez! What with filter propellers of death and Evil prawns, turns out they are the Indiana Jones of the tank world! Who would of thought!?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Kuhlis very rarely bury themselves, if at all.

 

[summat fishy]

Kuhlis very rarely bury themselves, if at all.

i bought 3 kuhli loaches 6 years back and 2 died leaving 1 on his own. he went missing and i thought he was dead but couldnt find the body of it making me believe he was eaten. anyways 3 years passed and then 1 day it appeared...then vanished again in an instant. i thought i imagined it but no...hes still with me now and is rather fat about 6 cm long. the thing is...this is only a 20 gallon tank! you would of thought i had seen him. i have 1 problem though...i once was sold a spiny eel fo my tank and was told it stayed the size it was and was completly harmless. after realising this was going to be a monster i needed to get rid of it vanished and ive never seen it since. i hope that isnt still in there!

 

[Sibelius]

Khuliis come from SE Asia which explains how he got in through your filter output, the rivers there are fast flowing are Khuliis like to swim upstream against currents, similar perhaps to freshwater fish in our rivers, for seasonal breeding. I wouldn't worry about my K. loach being dead unless I couldn't find him for more than 6 weeks. They always tend to be fine!

 

[2day]

I had the same problem. I have four khuli's and they were in my tank with the other fish (guppies, clown loaches etc...) and i had a canister filter. I would look at the tank and find no khuli's. I was aware that they can bury themselves under sand. I looked in the canister, and there they were. They were sucked up throught the strainer and into the filter, swimming around all hapily. Crazy, isn't it???

 

[whip]

I've lost mine for as long as 6 month's. I also had one that lived under the UGF plate. To this day, I have no ideaa how he got there, if was able to get out, what he ate.