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Hillstream loaches getting enough to eat


AJL
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Hi,

I added a hillstream loach to my tank about a week ago and am mildly concerned that I haven't really seen it go after the food I've put in the tank (Hikari algae wafers and Repashy gel). However, my several dozen red cherry shrimp, amanos, and various snails have been having a feast. Do I need to be concerned about the RCS outcompeting the loach for food?

Thanks,

AJ

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Hi @AJL. I've had similar concerns with my solo Hillstream in a 9 gallon tank with 1 Nerite and a bunch of piggie guppies and endlers. I leave out Repashy, bottom feeder wafers of a few types. I've never witnessed "Kirby" eating that but they seem perfectly fine. However I don't get crazy about cleaning or getting rid of algae. Kirby keeps my Anubias plants in this tank very clean. 

You can try feeding at night, some of our bottom feeders prefer to eat then. 

Over time, if they are hungry they'll find the commercial foods- this transition sometimes takes a while. 

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I have the hillstream loach's smaller cousin the borneo spotted loach.   I keep three of them in my 40 breeder.   For the first few months all they did was hide and eat algae.    After that they did start coming out for feeds.   They eat Omega One Shrimp pellets (really for the corys but they eat them anyway), Repashy Soilent Green and New Life Spectrum AlgaeMax Wafers (one of the few algae wafer out there where the main ingredient is actual algae).   They are slow eaters so anything that gets gobbled up quickly they will not get.   I tend to feed all the fish at the same time so that my faster eaters are at the surface gobbling up the generous amount I gave them so they tend to ignore the food that drops to the bottom.   

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I switched out some of my tank decor for a nice pile of smooth river rocks and that's made a huge difference in my loach's shyness. It now spends most of its time hanging out on the rocks and explores the tank more when the lights go out. I still haven't noticed it doing much eating, I've been putting a cube of Repashy on the rocks at the same time as I drop in some bottom feeder wafers in another part of the tank. Hopefully this distracts the shrimp a bit.

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