The Kuhli Loaches expert care solution:Behaviour,Habitat and more.....

 The Kuhli Loaches Care solutions: Behaviour, Habitat and more...... 

If you wanted kuhli loach fish to be part of your aquarium batch ,then undoubtedly you can allow it. The reason behind having it as a tank companion is, it's fascinating and distinct behaviour that it possess. 

Kuhli loach fish is a peaceful fish that most of it's time spend for searching food at the bottom of the fish tank, this unique feature makes it more special to consider as a freshwater fish. The Kuhli loach fish is considered to be good cleaner fish. 

If you need access to know more in detail about Kuhli loach fish, read the descriptions below, you'll understand the characteristics about kuhli loach fish. From this article you can learn how to take care of your kuhli loach fish in all aspects. 

Let's go in details...... 

Classification of Kuhli Loach

The Kulhi loach is belongs to Cobitidae family with genus Pangio. It's scientific name is pangio Kuhlii, but previously in 1846 it was scientifically called as Acanthophthalamus kuhlii.Kuhli loaches  originate from South Asian countries like Indonesia,Malaysia. These fishes are also known as coolie loach and cinnamon loach. These fishes are firmly hires in the moderate motioning rivers. The kuhli loach fishes are scavengers, always found at the bottom of the rivers in sand and gravel. They consume the food that lefts uneaten in the sand by the other fishes. The shape of their body describes more about the quality of the food they take. Kuhli loach fishes are just 3-5 inches long according to the environment they exposes to. 

The main remainder that to be noted for more clarification when you go for buying loaches.In most of the cases, you may get confused with the scientific names like Pangio anguillaries, Pangio myersi,Pangio agma. So just be clear when you go for it. 

How does it look ? 

The Kuhli loach appears in an eel-like structure with a bit of compression on either sides of their body, three pairs of barbells are found around their mouth and very little fins. The dorsal fin begins from back middle of their body and their eyes are covered with thin translucent layer which protects them from eye damage and crystal clear visuals even during dark nights. As these fishes bodies are so slender that keeps them with less masses. 

The dorsal fins of kuhli loach are visible,unlike some of other fishes.The unique characteristics of its skin is the indistinct scales on their bodies.They travel in a undulatory locomotion in the water.The kuhli loach fishes catches high speed when they feels threaten by other anger fishes, so it's better to keep kuhli loaches with peaceful fishes. This feature makes themselves protective from other harming fishes. 

The bodies of kuhli loach fishes are covered with a total of 20 to 30 bars with brown to black coloured with gaps between them, are filled with slight yellowish to pink colours. These colours between gaps varies from fish to fish, as they grow their colour too changes respectively. 

How long Kuhli loach grow? 

              The kuhli loach fishes typically grow according to the environment they habited to. They usually grow from a length of 3 - 5 inches. Their size basically depends on the environment they live. The development of kuhli loach in an aquarium is a bit less than its actual growth in the streaming river. When comparing the length, these fishes grow 3 - 4 inches in an aquarium, but the maximum length of their growth is obviously 5 inches. 

How to differentiate gender? 

The gender differentiation between male and female is difficult in kulhi loach because they just appears to be similar in size and shape. But still it can be found unless observation comes into act, then revealing may be possible. When observing male infrastructure clearly will leads to the noticing of their excess muscle at the upper dorsal cross - section, the pectoral fins are slight larger and usual appearance of few pigments. 

During breeding, the female loaches increases noticeably in size than male. The female possess greenish ovaries that can be appeared from their body before spawning.

What to feed as food? 

The kuhli loach fishes are omnivores in nature. They preferred to consume live foods,little shrimps and plants materials as their food.You can also feed freeze - dried, tablets and wafers. They intake the live food the most those are found in the sand at the bottom of the river/aquarium.

Actually these fishes Sieves the mouthful of sand to choose the eligible to take as food for their survival. The main reason why we call kuhli loaches as cleaners. When you feed the fishes make sure that the supplied food should sink into the water which favours kuhli loaches to acquire their food,because they are bottom - dwelling creatures. These fishes are scavengers, always search food at the bottom of your aquarium. 

The list of live food that should be included for diet are water fleas,brine shrimps,Bloodworms, Micro worms and Grindal Worm and Daphnia. Giving pellets, flake foods is also good choice for your fish to get a balanced diet. They can also consume some vegetables and flesh dishes, don't try too much a little bit will be ok. Overfeed your kuhli loach fish . It's better to feed these fishes a several times a day with quantity of food they can consumes in 2-3 minutes.

Habitat & parameters of tank

The kuhli loach fishes are originate from indonesia and Malay peninsula.The sand beds and the slow motioning rivers are the natural habitat of the kuhli loach fishes.They typically found dwelling bottom in the rivers. These kuhli loaches swims in the clean streams of the dense forest where the sunlight directly travels through water.This is why kuhli loaches are known as freshwater fishes. These are not schooling fishes, but still enjoys with other fishes company. 

Kuhli loaches are from tropical climate , so it's better to setup the parameters of your aquaria similar to the suitable atmosphere. 

  

See that the tank conditions and set up should suitable for the survival of the kuhli loach fishes. 

Follow these parameters:

• The size of aquarium should be 15 - 20 gallons will be good for kuhli loach to survive. 
• The water in the tank should be clean and oxygenated to provide sufficient oxygen to the fishes. 
• The lighting inside the tank should be maintained in moderate.
• It's recommended to have gravels , sand, some floating trees, little woods in the bottom of your tank. 
• As these fishes are suitable for tropical climate, the water in which these fishes live have a bit acidic 5.5 - 6.5 pH,but for aquaria maintain to 7 pH. 

• The hardness of water should be up to 5.0 dGH
• The temperature of the water should be maintained from 24 - 30 degrees of Celsius. 
• To maintain the quality of the water, use perfect filters to clean constantly about 10 times for every hour. Make sure the inner and outer pipe of the filter should be covered to avoid your fish from being trapped. 

Behaviour of kuhli loach

 The kuhli loach fishes are scavenging food in the bottom of the aquarium, if it wants to get food then it has to wait for the food to sink into the bottom,that is why these fishes are known as peaceful fishes.Their patience qualifies them as a peaceful beings in the aquatic world. 

The kuhli loach fishes are shy and reclusive. It's hard to find them roaming in the aquarium, when they are kept alone. Even they are not schooling fishes, but they still manages to stay joyful with other non-aggressive companions. These fishes get activates during night time than day time. We can see them most of the time hiding behind the floating plants and clusters. They hide even when they are with other fishes, when someone try to take their attention. 

These fishes kill themselves by burrowing into the sand , if the hardness and dirt of water increases. So be sure to check the quality and hardness of the water. 

Tank mates for kulhi loach

To find better tank mates for kuhli loach fish, we need to consider the nature of the kuhli loach. As these fishes are peaceful fishes, so let's make the collection of some non - aggressive fishes that can be tolerate by kuhli loach. 

The kuhli loach fish is a bottom- dwelling fish, so it will be good if we add fishes which occupies the other areas of the atmosphere.

The species those with peaceful nature like Danios, tetras and Rasboras are more suitable to keep them with kuhli loach. Cory catfish, Hatchet fish and Platy are also suits as companions with kulhi loaches because they occupies other areas of the environment. 

To keep your kuhli loach safe, it's better to avoid them placing with some aggressive fishes that can harm your loach. Aggressive fishes like Oscar fish, flower horn, Mini Dovii and most Cichlids will cause damage to your loach. 

The peaceful fishes of epipelagic occupies the top area of the atmosphere are better choice to include with your loaches because nothing will effect the loaches as these loaches lives at the bottom of the aquarium. Pelagic fishes includes gouramis which are similar to the kuhli loach fishes. 

It is better to keep a group of kuhli loaches together will help them to be more happy and active. A group of more than 6 is pretty good number to add on to your community. 

 

Kuhli loach illnesses

These fishes don't have head scales and consists of very faint body scales, due to this fishes gets usually infected with most of diseases. They routinely infected with a disease called as Ich. It is caused by the Ichthyophthirius multifiliis parasite which will effect their health. Not only kuhli loach, all other fishes are victims of this disease. 

It will also infected by other fungal disease called Saprolegnia Fungus which causes fungal infection to your kuhli loach, this occurs because of the dirt formation in the water. 

These loaches are quite sensitive to have medications during infected with different diseases. In order to cure these diseases, we need to personally take care of them by adjusting temperature of the water and by serving medications time to time. This process will cure your loach, but even then they frequently gets infected to diseases because of the stress that was possessed during previous cure. 

The best way to get rid off these diseases is to avoid bad water quality and improper balanced diet. 

Breeding in kuhli loach

Breeding in kuhli loach is really a difficult task, as these fishes looks identical in size, it's tough to differentiate them. But the thing is, we can still differentiate by size, when the female loaches are ready to spawn,increases their size very faster. To get maturity in kuhli loach it takes around 2 years of time, don't worry about it ,just be patient. 

 

Even it is harder to breed kuhli loaches, if you follow these measures it would be easy for you to breed. 

The first most thing you need to do is, create a community of kuhli loaches into a separate tank which helps them to avoid restrictions from other communities. 

The water quantity of the tank should be kept low and the light should be turned to dim mode, this helps them to feel comfortable which further leads to mating. As these fishes are bottom dwelling having the water quality low creates a feel of virtual environment for them. 

The kuhli loach fishes in tropical region will find a protective dense vegetation to lay their eggs. So we need to create a artificial dense vegetation with some live floating plants which allows them to feel protective from outer side. Maintain the hardness of the water a bit less than usual and raise acidic nature to 6.5 pH. 

Feed these loaches with more quantity of food, live foods are preferred to be more healthy for breeding. During breeding process, they requires more energy to feed their ovaries. 

When the mating process finishes, then female loaches lay their eggs in inner side of the floating plants and other protective areas in the aquarium.These kuhli loaches lays hundreds of eggs at a time. These laid eggs are feed by the female loaches.

 

The adult loaches try to eats the fry,so make sure you separate them by keeping them in regular tank. After the immediate hatching feed hatched loaches with fry infusoria or live brine shrimps which gives them instant energy and works as healthy source. Later on  add the separated adult loaches into previous tank. 

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