Kuhli breeding

[lmhicks101]

So I’ve done my research a bit on this and from my understanding this is not easy. To the best of my knowledge, Silver and Golds are pretty much only wild caught. The normal 8 stripes and chocolate are about the only ones bread easilyish. Does anyone on here have any suggestions? These are all in a 29 gallon that’s heavenly planted. 

Tank mates

10 harlequins

15 cardinal tetras 

7 Pygmy corries

2 mystery snails

3 nerites snails

Ramshorn and bladder snails

 

 

Food 

Xstream nano flakes

Hikari sinking potties pellets

Pleco wafers

Frozen brine shrimp

Frozen bloodworms

Bug bites nano 

 

Water quality 

PH - 6.8-7.2

Ammonia/nitrites - <.25

Nitrates - 5-10

GH - 7-9

KH - 2 

Temp - 76°-78°

Edited November 30, 2021 by lmhicks101

[Fish Folk]

Here is a fine article on them, with details on breeding.

(1) You will benefit from a very mature, seasoned aquarium.

(2) Kuhli loaches won’t begin breeding until they’re 18 - 24 months old.

(3) Use at least a 20-gal long or larger footprint. Avoid tall tanks.

(4) pH needs to get down below 7.0 into the 6.5 range. Rainwater / ground-water runoff may help.

(5) Keep a group together of ca. 6x Kuhlis. They’ll pair off / choose mates once mature.

(6) To get them ready, feed lots of live foods, especially live black worms, scuds, etc.

(7) Make sure the tank is heavily planted, especially with _floating plants_ (e.g. water lettuce) because the females will lay eggs in the _floating plants_

(8) To trigger spawning, lower water to ca. 6-inches or so, and lower / mute / shade the light significantly.

(9) Feed lots of live food during spawning period.

(10) Females get large, and full of roe. Once they spawn, get the adults out - or carefully remove the egg-laden floating plants. They’ll eat their fry.

[lmhicks101]

Thank you for that. I thought they just dropped the eggs in the substrate. I definitely need to read more 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Observing the Khuli loach intertwining with each other up in floating plant roots is worth the effort. Cool behavior.

Pulling the plants with the eggs from my colony is on my list at some point. I normally run colony set ups knowing that eggs and fry of one species are a food source for all the of the adults in the tank unless pull eggs.

[lmhicks101]

Do you have multiple species in at once and do they cross breed? 

[Odd Duck]

Will they use a floating spawning mop?