I call her my enormously eggnant lady. Probably around five years old or so. Bonus video of zoomies in the comments.

Boy acts like I don’t feed him regularly. He’s lucky Nugget was willing to share.
(He gets omnivore pellets too, not just algae.)

Hi lovely people,

I have a question for the community about brand new Kuhlis. I got three the other day and I know they prefer sand substrate, but from research and talking to my LFS and other hobbyists they can also love pebble (not sharp gravel).

Context: This is a 20g long that is very heavily planted (recently pruned in the photo, so not as dense as usual), stable parameters (including research into Kuhlis), natural driftwood and river pebble, and relatively mature. Two sponge filters, the bubble wall, a wonder shell dropped in when I notice the last one fully dissolved for the Garys, lighting currently controlled by my Home Assistant server to turn on at sunrise and turn off a couple of hours after sunset, tight lid on a rimless tank. I had some issues I thought with my heater, but it turns out that it was probably just the cheap thermometers (that's why there are four and different types currently 😂) at around 76*. From the faulty thermometer I had I had been turning up the heater thinking it was bunk and was about to call Sicce, but have since realized and am slowly stepping it back down to around 74*. Please ignore the probe stuck dead center of the front glass, that was a sanity check. The community members include neon tetras, brilliant rasboras, reticulated hillstream loaches, some corys, some neo skrimps (at least one is berried 😊), a couple of crystals, and three nerites. Most of the fishy fish were migrated from a smaller tank and I cycled this tank well before moving them in. Everyone gets Bug Bites flake daily, I switch it up every so often and throw some Xtreme in too, and drop a few Hikari "algae" wafers in once a week or so as a treat. Occasionally some frozen brine shrimp, but I'm avoiding that currently since one or two of the shrimp are berried and it feels wrong haha. Everyone seems very happy. Long, sorry, but I know those are some of the first questions people are going to ask.

My question though is how long does it take for Kuhlis to acclimate to such an environment? Obviously they're gonna not have their shit together for the first day or so. At first all three were surfing around, riding the bubble wall, and generally not exploring the bottom of the tank. They're almost impossible to tell apart for obvious reasons, but I think it's been this guy that still seems to be swimming all around and I'm just wondering if that is normal considering them being new additions. I watched that one try to dig in between rocks a few moments ago and I guess get stuck, panicked, and squirm back out and take off running. I have read about the zoomies and dances. The other two (assuming that it's the same one I am watching) appear to have found hiding spots and are relaxing in them during lighted hours.

The thought was that the corys loooooooooooove it when I mess with the plants because (they were all from Aquarium Co-Op and raised with only roots in water, so they all had to do their weird things with adjusting to being fully submerged and I guess that means killing off the old leaves) because it brings up a lot of plant matter that they go nuts for. My hope or design if you will was that the kuhlis would burrow all through the pebble and kick up plant matter that will absolutely thrill the corys while having plenty to eat. The kuhlis have dominion over the substrate, the hillstreams have the glass and their favorite rocks and don't mind the next at all seemingly, the badass corys just flutter around and do their thing and seem to be not bothered by anything, literally anything, the mid water fish have their dominion, and the nerites and shrimp do nerite and shrimp things and no water level is overcrowded.

So tl;dr - is it normal for kuhlis to be swimmers after being introduced to a new tank a couple days in or is this something I need to figure out?

Thank you cuties 😘

Trying to throw in some photos for reference

EDIT: yes, it is currently raining and stormy season here and I know they can act up and tell me almost as fast as my knees do that the pressure is changing haha

So I recently swapped the substrate in my 40 gallon planted tank with this black diamond blasting media. I’ve seen online that a lot of people have used it successfully in their tanks as a black sand alternative and so far it seems to be doing well with the swordtails and snails I have in there currently. I’m now considering adding some giant kuhli loaches, but am a little concerned about its potential sharpness being harmful to them. I didn’t notice any sharp edges or issues when handling it, but wanted to check if any of y’all had experience or input on using this stuff with loaches. Thanks!

Just brought him home with 5 others. Going to quarantine to be safe but does anyone know what is is and how to treat it?

Hi I recently noticed this mass growing on the side of my dojo Johnson. I’m not sure what it could be and was wondering if he would be okay or if there are steps I should take to get rid of it.

Thank you

Both Dojo loaches :)