Aggressive Hillstream Loach

[TMartins]

Hello everyone, I have an aggressive female Reticulated Hillstream Loach in a 20 gallon high with 2 Platies, 5 Albino Cory’s and 1 Bolivian Ram.  I’ve had him for about 2 weeks.  The first week he would constantly hide and keep to himself.  Then I got a second female Hillstream Loach and the shyness went away.  My concern is that at feeding time and only at feeding time he gets overly aggressive towards all the fish (and not just the other Hillstream Loach), especially the Albino Cory’s (but so far he leaves the Bolivian Ram alone).  I put in extra sinking food, Repashy and Hikari sinking wafers, but he just swims around the bottom and barrels over the Cory’s and any fish that gets in his way.  So far I’ve not noticed any injuries on any of the fish.  I’ve read that people have had aggressive Hillstream Loaches before and it usually calms down.  Should I wait or return him to my LFS??

Edited August 16, 2021 by TMartins

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi @TMartins others will weigh in but I'll throw my 2 cents into the ring as I've been waiting to get some Hillstream for a tank and have done a bunch of research. They get territorial and if he's new to the tank that's probably part of it. I've seen that it's good to make sure he has a place to stake out as his own some sort of cave or hidey hole. They can be aggressive around food but I've also seen they posture a lot but rarely if at all do any damage- all the videos I've seen it's fairly comical. I would say he'll probably settle down I would check with the LFS to see what their exchange/return window looks like so that you can give him time to settle in.