Dojo Loaches

[CJs Aquatics]

Hey all, so I’ve noticed the past few days my dojo loaches appear to be attempting to breed yet the male doesn’t finish the dance (stops just short of wrapping around her like bettas do) and the female never releases or scatters any eggs. They are noticeably trying which is very cool to watch but I was wondering although not much is  known about actually getting them to spawn maybe anyone had any ideas which could perhaps persuade/ trigger them to finish the process? Any suggestions are welcomed as I think it would probably be more of a happy accident even if it did happen…

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

The rumor is they use hormones on the farms to get them to spawn. @Bentley Pascoeany thoughts on this? 

[Bentley Pascoe]

Most of the typical advice out there for getting your dojo loaches to spawn involves of somewhat lengthy process of steadily cooling down the water to act like winter and then bringing the water temperature back up to spring and summer temperatures. Usually this process is done over about 6 weeks or so in order to simulate nature. Then as you're getting into those "spring" temperature is you'll start feeding higher quality foods. Maybe a little bit higher quantity to help them get ready to spawn.

 

As far as hormones are concerned, that's nothing that I've really researched into. They spawn so readily in the wild and if you get them into large enough ponds like you would see in Florida or the like I don't know that they necessarily need to go to that level. Possibly the food based Loaches that you can see in certain Asian markets are done under that.

[CJs Aquatics]

Thank you gentlemen this has been very insightful, I may actually perhaps look into a 6 week plan of temp adjusting and see what happens, probably nothing but fun to try none the less