Hillstream loach update and Thank you

[Geri Lu]

 

Thanks for starting this forum Cory!  I live in Central California and caught the fish bug this summer when I started an outdoor waterfall pond.  Then I thought it needed some goldfish.  Then I had a crash course in fish in cycling.  I didn't lose one fish!!  But I did tons of water changes and learned a bunch.  Now I have a beautiful, stable (50g) pond.  I thought I needed a hospital  tank just in case, so I picked up a 29g at a yard sale and started cycling that one without fish.  Then I Found the co op group on fb, saw a bunch of videos Cory did and decided that I should have plants.  That tank cycled in just 3 weeks, thanks to the knowledge I got from the awesome videos.  I find it thrilling to see that beautiful blue in the nitrite tube and yellow in the ammonia tube.  When I saw it was stable for another week I went to LFS to get 6 Danios.  I got those, and the guy suggested I get a hill stream loach.  I took it home knowing nothing about the fish, which is not my usual M.O. for anything I do.  I panicked when I started reading about their natural environment and how I needed to set up a special tank for it.  I asked the support group for advice.  Everyone was so helpful, and I am pretty sure this little guy is happy now and I will be able to keep him!  So I watched the video Cory did, and a couple others and took advice from several people.  I added 2 air stones, more smooth rocks, a small slab of blue stone so he would have more places to get out of the way of the Danios gang LOL! Bought some Hikari algae wafers and put this cucumber in. He loves both and really chowed down. He keeps coming back to the cucumber. I love this fish! It may not be his perfect set up, but better than the bare tank at the LFS. I will do the best I can for him. THANKS AGAIN TO THOSE WHO SHARED THEIR EXPERIENCES.  I look forward to pictures and lots of fish stories on this forum.

[Streetwise]

I still need to try vegetables in my tanks!

Welcome!

[Geri Lu]

He loves it!  I gave my goldfish some watermelon rind yesterday and they went nuts!

[Eclipse]

Welcome to the hobby! Hillstream loaches are wonderful little fish and one of my favorites.  I have six of them myself and they're absolute dorks. 

Remember to give them some protein as well. They love chowing down on frozen foods like bloodworms or brine shrimp too.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Eclipse

[Ben Ellison]

I love mine as well. Like a mix of the predator and a pleco on a stringray ish body. I currently only have one as they are pretty hard for me to come by.

[Ben_RF]

Welcome to the group! I still need to try the vegetables with mine.  Though lately they seem to really like it when I mix repashy soylent green with some fluval bug bites.