Loach Issue

[riseabovethesun]

So I think I found out why my cherry shrimp weren't breeding. The loaches were most likely eating the young, today I caught a loach attack and pick at a cherry shrimp who was about an inch in size.

I love my shrimp more than the loaches, so now I need to figure out what to do with them. Has anyone else ever had this happen? I mean I know larger fish will tend to eat smaller invertebrate or even other fish.

I don't want to get rid of them, I have 4 and all I have is a 10 gallon tank and a 2 gallon tank. Obviously the second isn't going to do much for anything. The 10 gallon has most all of my guppy babies and females, so for the time being their waiting in the two gallon for no more than 24 hours so I can figure out what to do. I don't want them eating the guppies...do you think they would?

Thanks.

 

[riseabovethesun]

I forgot to mention that they are Kuhli loaches!

 

[tropicalcrazy]

loaches LOVE shrimp. the shrimp need LOTS of hiding spots to keep away from them and even then they still will have a problem living. ive never kept kuhli but i was keeping yoyos with cherry shrimp and ghost in my 55g for awhile. the only reason lots of babies made it was because i had tons of java moss for them to hide in. i dont know about loaches and guppies though. i believe guppies are livebearers and i have livebearers (swordtails, had platies also) mixed in with the yoyo's. my yoyo's are roughly 4-5". i have had swordtail fry make it to 1" without any problems (in fact i have several right no) with the loaches. if your that worried than i would say give the loaches up. they may cause you more harm then good but then again idk about kuhlis

because loaches were going for shrimp is why i now have a 16g shrimp haven

hope this can help some.

 

[riseabovethesun]

loaches LOVE shrimp. the shrimp need LOTS of hiding spots to keep away from them and even then they still will have a problem living. ive never kept kuhli but i was keeping yoyos with cherry shrimp and ghost in my 55g for awhile. the only reason lots of babies made it was because i had tons of java moss for them to hide in. i dont know about loaches and guppies though. i believe guppies are livebearers and i have livebearers (swordtails, had platies also) mixed in with the yoyo's. my yoyo's are roughly 4-5". i have had swordtail fry make it to 1" without any problems (in fact i have several right no) with the loaches. if your that worried than i would say give the loaches up. they may cause you more harm then good but then again idk about kuhlis

because loaches were going for shrimp is why i now have a 16g shrimp haven

hope this can help some.

I had the kuhlis for quite some time and never noticed a decline in the shrimp but finally saw that it wasn't increasing either. I then saw one actually attacking a shrimp, then the lightbulb went off. I've heard people say Kuhlis eat snails, but have found more people saying they don't and that is for the clown loaches, I figured since most of my shrimp are about 2" or so, minus the babies if any, that it wouldn't be an issue, my Kuhlis aren't very big at all. I'm sure a lot of fish that are community fish would snack on shrimp, I just hadn't seen it. I have a pretty heavily planted tank, but the Kuhlis LOVES squirming around in the java moss, java fern, through the driftwood, you name it they were there, so nothing could hide. I ended up moving them to the guppy tank, for now they're fine, if they get bigger I'll have to figure something else out and I think since the baby guppies stay at the top they probably won't die off, not that a few dying would be too bad :-0 Thanks for the personal experience though, it really helps when people actually have had things in their tank, not that they just read something somewhere! :]

 

[tropicalcrazy]

yeah ive noticed from time to time fish nippin at shrimp slowly picking away. that is another way for them to slowly but surely die off.

luckily my yoyo's dont like to burry themselves in the java moss but im sure all the fish in my tank got some good deserts because i bet only 50% of the babies made it. i had like 6 females that had large clutches when introduced in that tank and i think i fished out around 30 in that tank and there are probably another 20 or so left in the 55g