Let’s talk Loaches

[CJs Aquatics]

Dojo loaches, males and females in a colony setting, deep sand bed, algae, Amazon swords, African water Ferns, HOB, and a ziss bubble bio. These loaches are adults, they are mature, at least 2 yrs old and large, highly active. Voracious eaters. Very rarely has anyone spawned them in aquariums. The question for all you hobbyists out there is, when you get a new species or just one you want to breed, what would you do first to attempt to trigger them? Example: I’ve heard cold water changes, spray bars to simulate seasons as well as light changes, colony setting, isolated male female setting, I’ve heard there are hormones breeders use food changes, all kind of things.
 

When you have a stubborn fish you can’t get to breed, what’s your go to? 

[nabokovfan87]

The biggest one right now is just feeding protein heavy foods (for a short time) or increasing feedings (for a short time).

I can't speak to how this works with loaches, but that's the standard for a lot of fish.  Feeding live foods, worms, baby brine, multiple times per day, etc.

[gardenman]

A lot of rare pleco breeders keep lots of livebearers in the tanks with them. Live bearers tend to be sexually precocious and the hormones they release while spawning and during live birth are said to increase the likelihood of the plecos breeding. If you're going to do that you want to minimize water changes to let the hormones build to a higher level as long as the water quality doesn't suffer too much. There are a lot of articles out there on hormone use in the fish farming industry to motivate breeding. Synthetic hormones can be bought for aquaculture use. They're typically injected into the fish.

Food in excess, so the parents know there will be food for the fry, is often helpful also. 

[CJs Aquatics]

I never thought about essentially other fish using dither fishes hormones as a trigger this is a new one for me that perhaps may be worth investigating thanks