Yoyo Loaches

[Jamie624]

Helloo I want to reduce the snail population in my 200l tank and I'm fed up of removing them daily by hand now lol
Read about how loaches can sort the problem so I researched clown loaches which i've decided get far too big for my tank. So I moved onto zebra and yoyo loaches. I'm siding towards the yoyos cuz i read someone's problem of their zebra being a real fin nipper.
So questions-
1. I know yoyos are really active, will they wreck my plant arrangement? Cuz ive planted the tank but I dont think they're particularly secure..
2. Can you tell me if loaches are incompatible with any of these- Neons, Glass Bloodfins, Guppies, Platies or Marbled Hatchetfish.

Oh and are dwarf loaches any good for my tank? Thanks! = )

 

[Baccus]

I have a couple of yoyo loaches and mostly the plants are safe from them, but they will excuvate under things but that is just becuase they like to feel secure, I would ensure that you get some sort of hollow ornament or logs to help these guys feel settled. They can crash and bash their way around the tank in a panic when they get a scare but other wise they tend to swim around more sedately, especailly as they get older. It is only now that my couple of yoyo loaches are reaching full size that they are really able to tackle snails on their own, prior to that I used to have to crush the snails for the loaches, that or they only managed to eat the really tiny/ young snails.

The only fish I have kept with Yoyo loaches is guppies (and I am pretty sure the yoyo's help eat the fry) and an adult bristlenose catfish. Hatchetfish tend to be rather flighty and I would think that yoyo loaches could easily send the hatchets flying into glass covers. Not deliberately just by their own activities and becuase the yoyo's are highly inquisitive about their tank mates. Platties like guppies should be fairly safe from the yoyo's but babies/ fry probably wont be. IF the young yoyos grew up with neons than the neons may remain safe but I can't gaurentee that an adult yoyo wont see a neon as a snack or something to nibble on.

Basically once large enough than yoyo loaches do a good job at snail control, but in all honesty unless you have a large enough tank to house at least 3 of these fish once adult then I would stick to putting carrot in the tanks, letting the snails attach to it and then scrape the snails off and dispose of them. You would most likely have to do this any way if you got young yoyo loaches, only you would have to crush the snails and drop them bak in for the loaches to eat.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Here is the deal with loaches and snails. There are snails of different sizes, but they are pretty much all born small and grow from there. There are also snail eating loaches of different sizes from the sidthimunki to the clown and everything in between.

Small loaches eat small snails and bigger loaches eat bigger snails. You can try to control snails with loaches with a number of different loaches but you will never be able to eradicate the snails. If you get the sids, they are voracious teeny/small snail eaters. So you will gain control over the pop by eating the young, however, you will still need to remove the bigger snails the sids can't eat yourself. So its not 100% effective. YoYos can be boisterous, but wont eat the many small snails only larger size ones so they cant prevent some from growing up and reproducing. Clowns are great snail eaters but get to large for most folks. And when small they will eat small snails and upsize their meals as they grow. I have never had snails survive long term in any tank I had clowns of any size in. Unfortunately, my clowns are now too large to eat the smaller snails like MTS or pond snails.

For a planted tanks sids would be my suggestion as long as nothing else will eat them.

However you do have another option. Assassin snails prey on snails. They can even handle MTS which is why I got some assassins initially. Now I am feeding the pond snails from other tanks to the assassins. Loaches should eat assassins, so you can't use them together.

 

[Jamie624]

@Baccus, I think the yoyos taking out a few guppy & platy fry isn't too problematic, possibly even a positive as I feel a little over-run but fry atm. I'm a little confused as to why the yoyos would prey on neon tetras but not adult guppies which are approx the same size and have a fancy tail that almost screams "eat me!". I'm now also a little worried that introducing them will utterly wreck my plants lol, I'm thinking an investment in some aquatic plant weights might be necessary... and youre right about the hatchets, I have a group of eight so they feel secure most of the time but a loud noise will often send them jumping which is concerning as they could hurt themselves. I think I'd have to get rid of the hatchets if I wanted yoyos... I think my tank is big enough for 3 juveniles, its 200L and 3foot across the front. But thats not big enough for 3 adults?

@twotankamin, I think the idea of getting sids might be the answer! My tank mostly has the small snails that are all over the place rather than inch long ones so it seems ideal. Are sids just as boisterous as yoyos? Do they have any special requirements?
(Oh I get the idea of adding carnivorous snails to remove plant eating snails, but at the end of the day you still have snails..? Or do they die off once their food source is gone..?)
Thanks to you both for replying = )

 

[Baccus]

@Baccus, I think the yoyos taking out a few guppy & platy fry isn't too problematic, possibly even a positive as I feel a little over-run but fry atm. I'm a little confused as to why the yoyos would prey on neon tetras but not adult guppies which are approx the same size and have a fancy tail that almost screams "eat me!". I'm now also a little worried that introducing them will utterly wreck my plants lol, I'm thinking an investment in some aquatic plant weights might be necessary... and youre right about the hatchets, I have a group of eight so they feel secure most of the time but a loud noise will often send them jumping which is concerning as they could hurt themselves. I think I'd have to get rid of the hatchets if I wanted yoyos... I think my tank is big enough for 3 juveniles, its 200L and 3foot across the front. But thats not big enough for 3 adults?

@twotankamin, I think the idea of getting sids might be the answer! My tank mostly has the small snails that are all over the place rather than inch long ones so it seems ideal. Are sids just as boisterous as yoyos? Do they have any special requirements?
(Oh I get the idea of adding carnivorous snails to remove plant eating snails, but at the end of the day you still have snails..? Or do they die off once their food source is gone..?)
Thanks to you both for replying = )

I was thinking along the lines of young neons added to larger/ adult yoyo's when I siad the yoyo's might see them as a snack. I use small rocks around the base of my plants to help anchor them into the gravel or sand (I also have a tank of various cory's and they are excellent at accidentally uprooting plants in thier foraging). Your tank would probably be big enough for three adults provided there are not piles of other mostly bottom dwellers. Also yoyo's are often kept in a group to reduce/ spread out their personal quarrels, I have never seen them take chunks out of each other but they can at times annoy each other. I would probably go with the sids. If you had assasin snails once they ran out of food (other snails) they would most likely die out. I wish I could get assasin snails in Australia, but that's just wishful thinking. I can gaurentee any loach species you do decide to get you will find to be very personable and often comical, they are a great fish.

 

[Jamie624]

Thanks so much = )
I hope to get the dwarves tomorrow haha = D

 

[robertsskippyj]

Helloo I want to reduce the snail population in my 200l tank and I'm fed up of removing them daily by hand now lol
Read about how loaches can sort the problem so I researched clown loaches which i've decided get far too big for my tank. So I moved onto zebra and yoyo loaches. I'm siding towards the yoyos cuz i read someone's problem of their zebra being a real fin nipper.
So questions-
1. I know yoyos are really active, will they wreck my plant arrangement? Cuz ive planted the tank but I dont think they're particularly secure..
2. Can you tell me if loaches are incompatible with any of these- Neons, Glass Bloodfins, Guppies, Platies or Marbled Hatchetfish.

Oh and are dwarf loaches any good for my tank? Thanks! = )

I know this thread is a few hours old now but I bought some zebras to control the some small snail problem i had and by the next morning all gone.
they live with my 10 cardinal tetras, a very young bristlenose and a male opaline gourami's with no problem what so ever and they are great fun to have to.

 

[Krayzee]

How did you get on? I'm a huge fan of yoyo loaches and have had mine 18 months now, absolutely brilliant. May take a while to calm down when you first put them in your tank as they're very curious! Don't mistake curiosity for fin-nipping or aggression though, they seem to always want to know what's going on and once they're accustomed to you, they'll come and see you if you sit by the tank watching. Very cute. They also have an excellent quirk of resting or sleeping on their sides, seemingly dead but just chilling out

Mine wiped out the snails very quickly and was relentless in the pursuit of them. My father-in-law had, and probably still has, loads of snails in his tank so I took 14 out and put them in my tank. I 'hid' them inside a small corner of the cave to give them a chance. Once they started crawling out and over the leaves that was it. Two days later I didn't see any more snails.

Be wary that they can jump though. We lost a yoyo due to him squeezing out an incredibly small gap that the wires fed through. It would've been very impressive if it weren't for the fact that we found him dead on the floor.

And yes they eat fry. The only time I got my fish to breed was Sunset Platys, and apparently the fry were very tasty...

I agree with Baccus that they need to be in numbers and need a large tank as they grow and need the space to zip around. Having said that I do only have the one due to losses, because he has a very close companionship with my fishnet fox and siamese algae eater and adding more yoyos will only disrupt that

Chris