My khuli Loaches pics...... and some advice!

[jeffrey]

Well I was at the lfs looks for something to replace my hatchets that didnt survive the coke attack of 8 oclock.

anyways, they had 3 khuli loaches, and while I was waiting for her to try and catch them a lady came in and started to complain to the girl helping me that her son hasnt seen his new fish since he put it in 2 weeks ago, a single khuli loach, as she is complaining ot the lady I pipe up and say that they need friends and hiding spots to be active during the day. She responds to this by saying "the damn fish can die alone then" and then started complaining wanting her money back, and she got it. wow not 4 bucks..... probably cost her that to drive there in her navigator.


Anyways, DO NOT LET KHULI'S BE ALONE, they really do like to be in groups and are very interesting to watch.
I have 12 now, and they are always basking or playing, while some hide still.
and every now and then its like a big game of tag, and if I could keep track of them it almost seems like its organised.

also they like blood worms, dont like algea disks, like little bits of chicken, like sinking pellets, and if you make some flakes soggy so they sink and get them to the bottom right when you turn off the lights, they like that.
They are also very hardy fish.


I am going ot try and breed mine, althought its very hard to find any information on this anywhere.


Here are some pics, they are hard to get pics of, and I have a camera that has a crappy autofocus that makes it harder.

 

[Auratus]

You should make an info page in the fish index.

 

[jeffrey]

You should make an info page in the fish index.

a what where now?

 

[CatLover]

What a heartless ***** that lady is. Grrr
Anyway, my khuli loaches LOVE algae disks, and hate blood worms. It all depends on the individual fish. Every fish in my tank is a lover of algae disks.
And yes, you should post in the fish index. It's the very bottom forum where a person can post valuable info on a certain species.

 

[Teelie]

You're lucky. My LFS hasn't been able to get any in yet. Their supplier keeps getting them but then they get sick so they don't ship them to my LFS, not that they or I am complaining. It's good to have an honest supplier like that just frustrating we can't get the Kuhlis.

 

[panther1505]

How do you feed your fish blood worms? Do you just drop them in the tank like flake food or brine shrimp?

After I am finished cycling my tank I would like to get a couple of Khuli's

 

[jeffrey]

How do you feed your fish blood worms? Do you just drop them in the tank like flake food or brine shrimp?

After I am finished cycling my tank I would like to get a couple of Khuli's

Make sure you get at least 5, well I guess 3, but 5 is what I would recomend.

yes, jsut drop it in, I like to let it thaw a few minutes out of hte water, then drop it in.

 

[leslie123]

I love my khuli loaches, too! The aquarium store 'round here doesn't like them - says they're too hard to keep alive, but I can't seem to kill them (not that I've tried). They even do fairly well out of water - one night when my 20 gallon tank leaked (whole thing onto the carpet in the middle of the night!) the kulis were the only fish that survived the out-of-water experience ... and one dwarf cichlid, but only because I performed artifical respiration on the cichlid (held it in my fingers and "swam" it through the water so it'd get air/water flow across its gills).

From what I've read, khuli loaches are difficult to breed. How do you plan to breed them; what sort of conditions? I've just moved where the water is real acidic and soft, wondering if I'd have any luck.

Leslie

 

[jeffrey]

From what I've read, khuli loaches are difficult to breed. How do you plan to breed them; what sort of conditions? I've just moved where the water is real acidic and soft, wondering if I'd have any luck.

Leslie

I've read the same thing,
they like a wide range of water ph and even temp, but they play more then its a bit cooler, like 72 or so.

I keep mine at 72.

I'm going to try breeding them, but having them in the same tank, lots of plants (read hiding spots) and make sure hte plants make it to the surface (I think they lay eggs at the top)

so I'll jsut see if I see some small ones one day.

 

[leslie123]

Hmmmm ... I think the book said they're found in "mats of floating vegetation" ... or did it say in shallow puddles/ditches? It was too long ago to recall. Does anybody on the forum know?

I'm no fish behavioral expert, but twice now I've lost (what I thought were) egg-heavy females - they were enormously fat -- they were trying, it seemed, to swim out of the top of the tank. It frustrated me to be unable to give them the conditions they needed. They weren't swimming into the vegetation on the top of the tank (my tanks are always heavily planted, although I wouldn't call it "mats of floating vegetation") but they were trying to swim over the side of the tank. Do they perhaps lay their eggs in really shallow water alongside the ditches, or on top of those mats of floating vegetation? These females seemed to want *out* of the tank. They didn't get what they needed and eventually died - the only khulis I've lost, and yes, I was upset to lose them.

Leslie

 

[ryan]

Looking good, I posted on your thread in Fish Breeding Advice about breeding them, it is challenging but possible. Good luck.

 

[Eelzor]

I might be getting more kuhllis too. The breeding sounds quite flukeish, but they are really a nice fish to watch.

 

[schzaam]

nice kuhli loaches and got advice

 

[totalbolshevik]

I love my khuli loaches, too! The aquarium store 'round here doesn't like them - says they're too hard to keep alive, but I can't seem to kill them (not that I've tried). They even do fairly well out of water - one night when my 20 gallon tank leaked (whole thing onto the carpet in the middle of the night!) the kulis were the only fish that survived the out-of-water experience ... and one dwarf cichlid, but only because I performed artifical respiration on the cichlid (held it in my fingers and "swam" it through the water so it'd get air/water flow across its gills).

From what I've read, khuli loaches are difficult to breed. How do you plan to breed them; what sort of conditions? I've just moved where the water is real acidic and soft, wondering if I'd have any luck.

Leslie

Yeah, they seem really tough to me... One time I was rinsing out an aquarium decoration in the sink (probably not a good idea, but this was a long time ago when I was a complete noob), and I didn't realize there was a kuhli loach in there. So when I turned the water on, a kuhli loach came flying out the bottom of the thing. It took me a good five minutes to catch him and take him back up to the tank, and he lived through the experience...

What I've heard about breeding them is that you need a very heavily planted tank, and it seems like the ones I've seen on the internet all had no substrate... Good luck helps too, because apparently they are a little shy when it comes to spawning. The eggs are small and green... Can't remember where they lay them.