Sewellia behavior advice

[beastie]

Seeking advice on sewellia (hillstream loach) behavior and why they dont like my tank.

In january I purchased five of them. Took them a month to become cofortable and stop hiding, since then, they were always out. They hang out mostly at glass on the right side of the tank where there is most of the light, some on the back of the tank, few favorites stones. There was male flashing and overall all was good. In june I noticed I keep seeing only three, and in three weeks I concluded there are no more. 

I purchased two more, one was noticeably a female based on the width (twice as wide as the rest of the stock I have). Three weeks later one sewellia was found dead. Now three more weeks and there are again only three sewellia to be seen in the tank, but the female is visible so it is not that the two added are gone.

As I said, they hang out most of the time on the glass, not even feeding, just sticking there. All of my garras hang on the same glass most of the time, since it is near a feeding hole in the corner of the tank (which is why I suspect the garras are there). Tank has a masive cave on the left side in the boulders and one fake cave on the right. There are so many stones, nooks and cranies. Maybe too many stones? I understand having a pebble pile is useless for sewellia as they wont fit in there . Tank is also full of moss, which covers a lot of the substrate too.

While I do not have an airstone and have only an internal filter, I have the filter output put so it agitates the surface. I doubt they are lacking oxygen.The output is also on high flow.  Even in the hottest days, the tank didnt exceed 26C. While I have a lot of the stones absolutely covered in algae, I do feed some spirulina, occasional vegetable, but also I feed frozen bloodworms, live and frozen bbs, cyclops, daphnia. I will also put in some dried food occasionally, like dennerle crustagran, fluval bug bites, some cichlid pellets, a varied diet in my opinion.

 

I am not sure what dont they like and why do I only have three and if to buy more

Picture is not the best, this tank is hard to take picture of and with mobile phone the colors are off. The moss in the front covers some boulder structure behind it, but there is also moss that covers 50% of the back behind the stones that you most likely cant see from the picture

Thank you

 

[Guppysnail]

Im sorry you are having a hard time.  
I’m new to Sewellia lineolata so take this with a grain of salt. I was told they need to eat a lot. I’ve had great luck using a coral feeder coating the rocks with fry food if different small sizes including powder. Frozen BBS . They love it. Perhaps there is only enough of whatever primary thing they need in the tank? Everything I read recommends an unusually large amount of tank space per.  

 I’ve noticed mine are very territorial. They bicker constantly when they encroach on one another’s territory. My dominant one claimed most of the tank. The other is not allowed over for visits.  Maybe the current three are bullying and won’t allow the other to eat enough?  

[Torrey]

26C may be too warm for them, and as Guppysnail said... they eat. They graze on the film in the tank, and they eat microorganisms that thrive in benthic algae. 

Best care information I know of from a friend who bred for a while ( I wanted to get some, still debating whether I'm going to keep waiting for the NANF I want, or add these to the tank) is this Australian publication.

My friend quit breeding them, or even keeping them, because he lost over half his stock in a power outage. With no A/C the tanks went from 68 F (20C) to 75 F (23.9C) over 4 days. He used battery pumps to keep plenty of air in the tank, and was pretty confident the heat either killed them outright, or reduced the microfauna population. He smeared rocks with Repashy, and placed the Repashy rocks in direct flow to encourage the Sewellia lineolata to congregate on the rocks. They needed highest protein Repashy for successful breeding. He would add frozen bbs to the Repashy sometimes.

Hope this helps!

[beastie]

Thanks

I bought repashy super green, coated a rock with it and saw the panda garra eat it sooner than the sewellia could 🙂

 

I doubt it is issue of being able to get to food, the sewellia will chase out the garras and minnows out of a pellet if needed and I try to include frozen that falls down, pellets and small foods.

The temp was only 26 for few days, otherwise it is mostly 23 and I have so many green rocks full of algae. I will try again with the repashy

 

 

[beastie]

Update, doesnt seem to be the temp. Thanks to the lovely weather, inside of the house has been 27/28C past two weeks, so the tank is 25C or 26C the whole time, and no death, still stable sewellia behavior.

I got the super green repashy and fed it twice, but overnight, along with algae wafers that I also try to feed at lights out to give the sewellia a chance. I do not see them eating it, but it is gone by the morning

Had I known the tank would rise to these temps I would have maybe reconsidered getting them, but month out of a year with these temps, and the rest of the time balmy 21 plus minus one two degrees should do them just fine. Will see again later on in the year

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/1/2023 at 11:02 AM, beastie said:

While I do not have an airstone and have only an internal filter, I have the filter output put so it agitates the surface. I doubt they are lacking oxygen.

I would definitely add one, maybe even two airstones.  They are a river species and love river-type of water.  Usually this is slightly cooler (76 or below, preferably 72-74) and they like highly oxygenated water.  As temp rises, you'd want to add even more oxygenation.  I understand there is the internal filter and agitation, but if you're losing them, the first thing I would ever suggest is to add air and check temp.

Depending on where they are in the tank can be an indication of what they are telling you.  This is based on the "be the fish" mindset from Eric Bodrock and it's things I've seen from my own hillstream loaches.

Hanging out on the back glass - This could be due to camouflage, light, or circulation.  They tend to want good circulation but it doesn't have to be a river torrent or anything.  During the day they will typically hide on the back glass and it's because it's away from the light. That was my experience.  I also had some that would hang out underneath shady spots in the hardscape and even use pleco caves as their little territory (hard flat rocks also works).  This is just things I've noticed in mine when I had them.

Sitting near flow or near air stone - This is common in a lot of species, but it does happen sometimes as a sign that fish might just want more oxygen or circulation in the water.  Sharks will do this as a form of recovery so they can gain their energy back.

Foods - Repashy is often a favorite as well as algae wafers.  Some brands they don't like some they do.  I fed repashy soilent green which is the one specifically mentioning aufwuchs for the marketing.  Frozen brine and flake foods they also did well with.
 

On 8/1/2023 at 11:02 AM, beastie said:

ank has a masive cave on the left side in the boulders and one fake cave on the right. There are so many stones, nooks and cranies. Maybe too many stones?

Maybe you can provide a little open space on the right side of the tank?  Especially by moving (or removing) some of the smaller ones up front.

Edited August 24 by nabokovfan87

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/1/2023 at 1:02 PM, beastie said:

purchased two more, one was noticeably a female based on the width (twice as wide as the rest of the stock I have)

Can you possibly get a picture of this female?  Females are not this much larger than males. It's possible you got a different species. The way you sex them is based on the head. A female will have a nice rounded head and the male will have more of a stair step to its head. 

[beastie]

On 8/24/2023 at 6:47 AM, Cinnebuns said:

Can you possibly get a picture of this female?  Females are not this much larger than males. It's possible you got a different species. The way you sex them is based on the head. A female will have a nice rounded head and the male will have more of a stair step to its head. 

The one near the plants is the wider one I assume is female. The second near the corner of the tank is the smaller sewellia, third I couldnt take a picture of. They all hang in the very well lit part of the tank furthest from the flow and filter output

 

[nabokovfan87]

Here's a great article by Eric Bodrock and it has photos of male vs. female.
https://www.loaches.com/articles/sewellia-lineolata-the-reticulated-hillstream-loach-easy-to-spawn-or-a-whole-lot-of-luck

Edited August 25 by nabokovfan87

[Cinnebuns]

On 8/24/2023 at 1:55 AM, beastie said:

The one near the plants is the wider one I assume is female. The second near the corner of the tank is the smaller sewellia, third I couldnt take a picture of. They all hang in the very well lit part of the tank furthest from the flow and filter output

 

You are correct it's a female and the 2nd is a male. All are S. Lineolata. Btw, sewellia is the genus name for many different species and lineolata is the species name for this specific species. 

[beastie]

On 8/25/2023 at 2:28 AM, Cinnebuns said:

Btw, sewellia is the genus name for many different species and lineolata is the species name for this specific species.

I know, thanks, i was just lazy to quote the whole name :))