Help! Weather loach/shrimp comp.   10/13/11
My husband and I have a 135 gallon tank and your people helped us out on before when we cracked some glass, which I might say our advise worked wonderfully! Currently I bought a golden loach
<I take it this is a xanthic variety of Weather Loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus)...>
without researching it first. We have shrimp, kali loaches, Otto cats with rocks, driftwood, and lightly planted (we are planning on heavy planting).
We keep it between 76.5 and 80 degrees. My questions are: will the golden loach eat my shrimp? Will it befriend the Kali loaches, how big will it get in our tank, and probably most important of all....... How the hell do I get it out of the tank before my husband shoots me!
<Very hard to extract for sure... use two nets...>
Thank you Michelle
<In a system this size, with enough plant material, though this loach may consume some small shrimp (young)... Not all likely. Bob Fenner>

Weather Loan <loach> biotope  5/6/11
Hello,
I have made a mistake of attempting to keep a weather loan (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) with 4 dwarf puffers, even though I was not advised to do so. At first puffers didn't bother the loach (he is about 5 inches, they are less than inch each) but within few weeks male started picking on him and driving the loach to hide and come out to eat only at night when puffers are asleep.
So I traded in the puffers and now hoping to establish a 20 gallon long tank ( 30 inches) or a 30 gallon long (36 inches) around this loach, particularly as a biotope.
Which is a problem, because even though in my home country weather loaches are extremely common I never saw them in what I would call "natural" environment. I grew up seeing this whiskery fish in dirty ditches, swamps, inner-city ponds and even large puddles after strong rain. I doubt loaches in the wild enjoy tank bottom of concrete and dirt and therefore need an advise on what would be a suitable biotope for a Misgurnus?
What would be good plants? (right now tank has Anubis, but that will be soon moved to another tank, and not suitable for Asian biotope anyhow) What would be good tankmates? How many loaches can I keep in 20 gallons? Would addition of Betta (male or female) be a good idea? Corydoras catfish?
Smaller variety of goldfish? Paradise Fish? Gourami? Lalia?
thanks!
Elena
<Hello Elena. Weather Loaches naturally come from streams where the substrate is sandy (smooth silica sand, such as play sand and pool filter sand) are typical. They will often bury themselves into this, with only their head exposed above the sand. So an aquarium "ideal" for Weather Loaches would have sand, smooth rocks arranged to make some caves and other hiding places, and a few plants around the edges. Use sturdy plants that won't be uprooted. Biotope plants would include things like Vallisneria and Potamogeton that will do well in, or prefer, unheated to subtropical aquaria (18 C is the ideal temperature). Tankmates would need to be species that enjoy similar water temperatures and don't mind a fairly open aquarium. Good candidates include Minnows of all kinds (such as White Cloud Mountain Minnows) and Bitterlings. If you can get them, fish such as Crucian Carp and Tench. All these come from Eurasia so are more less similar to what Weather Loaches live with in the wild. Standard (i.e., non-fancy) Goldfish also work well, but Goldfish are messy, and Loaches like to dig, and the combination can be a very dirty aquarium! So if you keep Loaches with Goldfish, they'll need a big aquarium and a strong filter. Above all else, Weather Loaches enjoy the company of their own kind, so keep at least two specimens for the most fun. If you want to go with non-Eurasian tankmates, then anything that also enjoys Subtropical conditions should do okay. Obvious options would be Scleromystax barbatus (also known as Corydoras barbatus, the big and beautiful "Bearded Corydoras"); the commonly Peppered Corydoras, Corydoras paleatus; the subtropical cichlid Cichlasoma portalegrense; and possibly Cave Tetras and Ameca splendens, though both of these can be a little nippy, though nothing like as bad as Dwarf Puffers. Paradisefish can work, but Paradisefish dislike strongly flowing water and need lots of plants, so they're not ideal companions. They're also aggressive bullies that mix poorly with other fish. At 22 C you might add some low-end tropical species to the mix such as Danios, Neon Tetras, Platies and Swordtails. Bettas and other high-end tropical fish that need 25 C or higher won't work in the long term. Cheers, Neale.>

Weather Loach and Xenopus  12/21/2009
Dear crew,
<Hello again,>
thanks for the previous response, I scratched my previous ideas altogether.
<OK.>
I was wondering whether this new idea would be workable. My research seems to indicate such, assuming the loach is of adequate size, but I wanted another opinion. On this point, I was wondering how fast weather loaches
grow, and whether a 30 gallon tank is large enough for them to reach their full size potential.
<Xenopus and a Weather Loach should get along fine, assuming an equitable temperature around 18-20 degrees C, which would be warm enough for the Xenopus but not too warm for the Loach. Your only real problem here will be feeding: the Loach is a very fast fish and can hog food. If you're hand feeding your Xenopus, that's less of an issue, but if not, then you may need to be careful. Cheers, Neale.>
Weather Loach and Xenopus
<PS. Weather Loaches grow quite quickly, and will reach their full size in around 2-3 years. Cheers, Neale.>
<<Mmm, RMF is chiming in here to warn re keeping Misgurnis and ACF/Xenopus frogs together. There is a high probability that the frog/s will consume the Weatherfish. And if there's a bigger eater than Xenopus, I have yet to encounter it. BobF>>

Re: More re: Weather Loach and Xenopus 12/21/2009
Thanks Bob for your comment here. I should perhaps have added "size permitting". Adult Weather Loaches are around 20 cm long, adult Xenopus up to 15 cm, so I can't really see these two being much of a threat to each
other at those size. But Bob is certainly right that any fish small enough to be eaten by the frog will be eaten by the frog. Perhaps erring on the side of caution is wise. As a rule, keep frogs in frog tanks, fish in fish tanks, and all will be well. Cheers, Neale.
"<<Mmm, RMF is chiming in here to warn re keeping Misgurnis and ACF/Xenopus frogs together. There is a high probability that the frog/s will consume the Weatherfish. And if there's a bigger eater than Xenopus, I have yet to
encounter it. BobF>>"
>Oh, and to tell a bit more... I kept Xenopus laevis years back when it was a good size part of research-lab animal interest in the U.S.. It is really quite an "eater-upper"... Like White's Tree Frog... really "trying" most anything moving it seems that might fit in its mouth. BobF<

Do Dojo loach's eat other fish ? <Well... big fish do eat little fish, but in the case of the dojo loach, I highly doubt they would eat another fish.>