Breeding Loaches

[CJs Aquatics]

Hello all, has anyone had success breeding loaches specifically dojo’s or zebras? also it’s a long shot but I picked up what was labeled as “inle lake hovering loaches” at my LFS and have had them for a while, turned out to be 4 males and 1 female. There is little info that I can find on breeding loaches in general outside of happy accidents, I would love to be able to breed any of them to help showcase how amazing they are to hobbyists in my area however have had no success. Info I’ve read says hormones or a trigger are required for most species I own to spawn, can anyone chime in and possibly offer some insight? Thanks in advanced…

[Tihshho]

Best of luck with this project! The only time I've seen gravid females were from a tropical pond being kept by my cousin. The pond generally had green water that was inevitable from the direct sun it got, but when he pulled the hides that the loaches would be in to show me their size they were huge. I'm not sure if he ever had fry, but he definitely had mature females in the pond. 

[CJs Aquatics]

Maybe this is a clue, every little bit helps, the female hovering loach is showing some serious size and the males display what I would assume is courtship behavior however nothing has “triggered” spawning… all the other loaches I own haven’t even showed any signs

[Tihshho]

Here is what I know from the pond:

Water changed every few months 90% - Evap is topped up every few weeks, as well as filled with rain. Total volume is about 2500 gallons 

Tons of dithers of various live bearers and small SA cichlids. Bottom dwellers are Corys and BN. 

Plants in there are Vals (potted) and floating hornwort mats.

Food was Tetra flake and Tetra Tropical Granules and whatever bugs made it in there.

[CJs Aquatics]

and I’m assuming since you said tropical in your first post that it’s in a 80’s- 90’s climate? Does it overwinter outside or do the contents of the pond get brought in when temps get low? 

[Tihshho]

It's tropical year round with highs in the low 90's and lows on average in the low (night) 70s but the water generally stayed in the mid to high 70's from retaining heat and the stone the pond is built from. No over wintering there because they don't get snow, just rain. 

[CJs Aquatics]

This is very interesting 

[Bullsnark]

I haven’t done it myself, but I was reading a post somewhere and someone had kuhli loaches breed in a tank that had gravel instead of fine sand. They speculated that the eggs/young fell through the rock and were protected from predators. 
 

[CJs Aquatics]

That would make sense, I’ve seen some rock piles be effective for species of loaches, I’m wondering how big of a role things like decor/ substrate may play in the breeding, I’ve always speculated it was more temperature/ time of year kinda thing but after talking with T I’m wondering if maybe communal breeding/ appropriate substrate/ hiding places etc may play a bigger role in the trigger then I originally thought… 

[gardenman]

Cory did a video on clown loach breeding back on may 26, 2019 titled "SERIOUSLY-This guys breeds clown loaches" that may have helpful information for you. I'm one of the 128 thousand people who watched it.

[CJs Aquatics]

I will have to watch it again, I remember watching it before but it’s been such a long time thank you I forgot about that one…

[CJs Aquatics]

I watched the video again, I don’t have clown loaches (yet) but I’m wondering if some of what was talked about would apply to the any of the following:

-dojo loaches

- golden zebra loaches 

- kuhli loaches/ black kuhli loaches 

- zebra loaches 

- inle lake hovering loaches 

- yo-yo- loaches

It could make sense that a consistent diet of a 2-3mm pellet would help to condition them for breeding, all of the species would probably take it but wouldn’t it lack the nutritional value of a variety diet like they would have in the wild or in the pond set up?

also how harmful could it be to them to switch them from 6.2-7.5 ph waters? Wouldn’t that take a toll on the fish themselves?

there is mention of a stable temp varying no more then 4 degrees triggering them to breed on the low end at 78 which I have heard before, which wouldn’t be too hard to replicate but my main concern is the health and happiness of the actual loaches any thoughts on the following:

- transitioning them from a varied diet to just a 2-3mm pellet

- how they would do transitioning from 7.5 water to 6.2 water health/ happiness wise and an efficient way to go about it if it wouldn’t be harmful?

 

 

[anewbie]

zebra loaches are nearly impossible to intentionally breed. It might happen in some rare cases but well report back if you are successful on a regular basis and you will be famous.

[CJs Aquatics]

Anewbie…lol you are right about that, I just feel like loach breeding almost in general is a problem that hasn’t been solved yet or just doesn’t have much enthusiasm within the hobby but I must say all the different kinds I’ve owned and do own have been awesome fish, it would be cool if someone finally cracked the code… I doubt it’ll be me but it is worth playing around with different things and hoping for a duplicatable happy accident lol 

[gardenman]

In general, fish want to spawn. When they don't spawn it's typically because we're not giving them something they need. Figuring out what that something is, or multiple somethings are, is the challenge. Ample food is a given. A certain type of food could be the trigger. Atmospheric changes. Lunar cycles. Changes in water flow rates. Changes in water chemistry. Day lengths. Temperature changes. Maybe they need a school of a certain size. Maybe they have a symbiotic relationship with something that's required for them to spawn. Maybe another fish spawning triggers them to spawn so their fry have fish eggs/fry to gulp down. Maybe they need to migrate miles upstream or downstream. Maybe they need a specific substrate. It could be a combination of multiple factors. There's a reason they won't spawn, but figuring out what it is can drive you a bit crazy.

[anewbie]

On 9/10/2021 at 3:19 PM, CJs Aquatics said:

Anewbie…lol you are right about that, I just feel like loach breeding almost in general is a problem that hasn’t been solved yet or just doesn’t have much enthusiasm within the hobby but I must say all the different kinds I’ve owned and do own have been awesome fish, it would be cool if someone finally cracked the code… I doubt it’ll be me but it is worth playing around with different things and hoping for a duplicatable happy accident lol 

I don't think it is that simple. Some fishes simply require special conditions not commonly found in the aquarium. I'm not sure how straight forward that fellow is being with regards to breeding clown loaches (i.e, i think a lot of details were excluded); but one thing he mentioned is that he conditions clown loaches at 7.5 ph but breeds them at 6.2; not many aquariums make that kind of shift.... 

[gardenman]

On 9/10/2021 at 9:49 PM, anewbie said:

I don't think it is that simple. Some fishes simply require special conditions not commonly found in the aquarium. I'm not sure how straight forward that fellow is being with regards to breeding clown loaches (i.e, i think a lot of details were excluded); but one thing he mentioned is that he conditions clown loaches at 7.5 ph but breeds them at 6.2; not many aquariums make that kind of shift.... 

He's likely replicating the rainy season with the pH shift. Loaches tend to live in mountain streams and mountains are made of rock and rock tends to give you harder, high pH water. Rain water tends to have a pH of around 5.6. If there's a rainy season then the sudden lowering of the pH (and hardness?) as the rain water dilutes the "normal" mountain stream water could very well be the trigger. There could also be a day length sequence involved. Likely a cooler water temp also. Fish have a trigger to spawn. Figuring out the trigger can be tough though. If you're brave enough to try replicating a rainy season and potentially risk losing the fish, then creating a rainy season in your tank using acidified distilled/RODI water at a slightly cooler temp might just trigger spawning.

[CJs Aquatics]

Random thought, what if instead of risking the fish as part of the researching the ph shift the 2 different ph’s were set up in 2 different aquariums, and some sort of “water bridge” in a sense linking them together allowed for the loaches to freely roam between the ph’s on there own and then be monitored for health and signs of breeding as well as anything else? Just a random thought…

[gardenman]

A loach in the wild wouldn't really have a choice. Their water is what it is. A rainy season can drop a year's worth of rain in a few days/weeks and vastly alter the water chemistry in streams, and even large rivers. The fish survive such upheavals (generally anyway) and may use it as a trigger to spawn. A heavy monsoon rainfall in Delhi recently dropped 1,100 mms of rain (that's about 43 inches.) That much rain in a stream is going to alter the stream water chemistry rather dramatically. There are monsoon seasons and some fish are seasonal spawners, so there's a decent chance that a monsoon rainfall is the trigger some need to spawn. If you're trying to spawn loaches in a 40 breeder, and knowing that a guy who spawns clown loaches does so by dropping their pH from 7.5-6.2, I might have a few large containers (100 gallons?) filled with 6.2 pH water (or even slightly more acidic like the 5.6 pH of rain water) that's slightly cooler than the tank water and then rig up a pump to pump that water into the tank at a moderate rate while letting the older tank water overflow out of the tank. There would be a transition period as the water exchanged, but you'd end up with slightly cooler, more acidic water that could trigger the spawning if the water quality alone was the trigger. Spawning could also be daylength based, lunar cycle based, or be triggered by something else, but that would be a good starting point. It might just work. You never know.

[Tihshho]

On 9/12/2021 at 9:12 AM, gardenman said:

A loach in the wild wouldn't really have a choice. Their water is what it is. A rainy season can drop a year's worth of rain in a few days/weeks and vastly alter the water chemistry in streams, and even large rivers. The fish survive such upheavals (generally anyway) and may use it as a trigger to spawn. A heavy monsoon rainfall in Delhi recently dropped 1,100 mms of rain (that's about 43 inches.) That much rain in a stream is going to alter the stream water chemistry rather dramatically. There are monsoon seasons and some fish are seasonal spawners, so there's a decent chance that a monsoon rainfall is the trigger some need to spawn. If you're trying to spawn loaches in a 40 breeder, and knowing that a guy who spawns clown loaches does so by dropping their pH from 7.5-6.2, I might have a few large containers (100 gallons?) filled with 6.2 pH water (or even slightly more acidic like the 5.6 pH of rain water) that's slightly cooler than the tank water and then rig up a pump to pump that water into the tank at a moderate rate while letting the older tank water overflow out of the tank. There would be a transition period as the water exchanged, but you'd end up with slightly cooler, more acidic water that could trigger the spawning if the water quality alone was the trigger. Spawning could also be daylength based, lunar cycle based, or be triggered by something else, but that would be a good starting point. It might just work. You never know.

This is a great idea to move down this test path. In order to do this you would need to basically have an auto water change setup so that the new water going in pushes the old tank water out. In a glassbox setting you're going to have to figure out the balance to do this with the flow rate to gradually change the values since large water ways dilute differently than the aquaria. Also keep in mind that upping the flow in general would help as well as any aeration you can provide. Floods rush in a lot of water with various nutrients, differing pH, food sources, and one big thing being tons of oxygen.