making hardscape safe for loaches

[Alix7]

Hi all, I have a glorious set of 4 loaches - possibly angelicus, but they were sold as yo yo loaches - and I want to make their tank beautiful and give them good places to hide.

I have large pieces of mopani wood but there are lots of little crevices and holes. I'm afraid when I stack the different pieces together, it might be too small for the stripey chonkers and they'd get stuck and die. Am I overthinking or what can I do to take precautions? (I currently have mopani/driftwood in the tank along with seiryu stone but they're all relatively flat surfaces.) The new pieces are more like tree roots.

Thanks in advance.

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/16/2023 at 5:26 AM, Alix7 said:

I have large pieces of mopani wood but there are lots of little crevices and holes. I'm afraid when I stack the different pieces together, it might be too small for the stripey chonkers and they'd get stuck and die. Am I overthinking or what can I do to take precautions? (I currently have mopani/driftwood in the tank along with seiryu stone but they're all relatively flat surfaces.) The new pieces are more like tree roots.

Welcome to the forums!  I would definitely avoid ohko stone (aka dragon stone) as they can go in and get stuck.  I think the mopani will be fine.  Keep an eye out on them for how they act and what they interact with. Adding something like pvc or ceramic pots with the bottoms knocked out might be an option as well.  Making some stuff out of slate might also be a cool option and you can custom make it to fit the tank.

Edited May 17, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Alix7]

On 5/17/2023 at 3:55 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Welcome to the forums!  I would definitely avoid ohko stone (aka dragon stone) as they can go in and get stuck.  I think the mopani will be fine.  Keep an eye out on them for how they act and what they interact with. Adding something like pvc or ceramic pots with the bottoms knocked out might be an option as well.  Making some stuff out of slate might also be a cool option and you can custom make it to fit the tank.

Thanks for the welcome and the response. The slate sounds like a great idea and I hadn't considered that before.