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General Info
Environmental needs
Food
Behavior
Tank set up
Water
Breeding

P.myersi. Though they are known to be nocturnal - some of my kuhlis are coming out to eat with other fish.

Common name - kuhli (coolie) loaches. After spending tons of time reading about them (though there is not much information available…) I realized, that there is two genus names - old Acanthopthalmus and new - Pangio. I can not call myself a big kuhli specialist, but I had several different species for over a year now, so I guess I share some of the things I was able to find.

Not all the loaches you can find in the stores by the name "kuhli" are actually kuhli. It is more like a common name, used for 4, or maybe even more, different species of fish from Acanthopthalmus (Pangio) genus: P.myersi, P.kuhli, P.semicinctus,P. javanicus . Currently I have two Myers loaches (P.myersi) and 3 black loaches (P.javanicus), and used to have several "plain kuhli" (P.kuhli) 

All of them look similar - thin eel-like body, dark brown with or without stripes, which can be yellow or even orange, and slightly lighter body. There are no scales on the head, mouth is surrounded by three pairs of whiskers, eyes have something like little whiskers as well. Because of them kuhlis got their genus name - Acanthopthalmus, or "thorn eye". They spend most of the time on the bottom hiding or sneaking for food. Swim bladder has bony shell, so they do not use it to adjust their depth, but vice versa - the swim bladder adjusts the fish position. During the abrupt pressure changes kuhlis start swimming along the aquarium walls - I guess just because they suddenly become lighter due to the relatively high amount of air inside of them. It is fun to watch them in the beginning of that process - they'd use their "normal" way of swimming to get around, but suddenly would swim much higher then usually! I am sure it surprises them as much us! During these periods they can easily stay in the mid-level, sniffing the aquarium walls. It used to bother me - but now I can predict the weather change much better then the weather bureau! But one of the books on loaches said also, that these type of behavior might be the sign of stress due to water or gravel pollution.

P.Kuhli - is a relatively small fish, 3.5 inches long, maybe ?" think, dark brown with 15-20 yellow strips, which almost circle the body.

P.semicinctus - is a half banded loach. In some of the description I saw, that the number of strips might be smaller and the loaches themselves is shorter.

P.javanicus - This kuhli is unbanded. Body is uniformly colored - brown, gray-brown or even redish brown. There are other unbanded spieces known: borneensis, pahangensis, pangea.

P.myersi - This is my favorite type. These are quite big - over 4 inches long, easily ?" thick, mostly dark, almost black with 10 or so thin yellow/orange strips. One of mine has small orange dots in the middle of dark brown bands. Their bodies are mostly tall then think, such that while they crawl on the bottom the tail part sometimes is turned on the side!

This are "Black kuhlis" - P.javanicus (probably), native of Java and Sumatra.

Environmental needs
This fish originates from South Asia, where they can be found in heavily planted arias hiding between the leaves. So, in the tank they love to find lots of plants - even plastic ones, hiding places and rocks. It seems that they prefer small empty rocks. My big loaches if they have a choice would go to confined places, even if they hardly fit in there, but not into spacious dark rocks. To make them comfortable I buried the empty ceramic half-logs into the gravel, such that loaches have just enough space to fit their quite tall bodies.

I have three in the 5 Gal tank and only two of in my 20 Gal tank now - I probably need to find more. They seem to be doing better in a group - though they don't spent all the time together, they do seem to be more comfortable if other loach is around. Especially when something stressful happens - they try to find each other and stay together for awhile...

Food
One rule: just because they are scavengers, does not mean they will it junk. They eat anything - flakes, brine shrimps, daphnias, and pellet food. And sinking pellets is not the best - it is too hard in the beginning, but then they still do not eat it, maybe because it is not fresh, or they get enough without those pellets. Dry tubifex worms are not too popular in my tanks either - loaches seem to like to try it, but then spit it back right away, try again, and spit again. Maybe too dry.

Behavior
Kuhlis are known to be nocturnal. You can even find, that they usually come out only during the night, and hiding all the day long, making their owners think, they perished. But mine do come out all the time. They learned to come out when I am feeding other fish - get scared by any movements, but would still try to find the way to get some of that fresh food.

Tank set up
I have one more point to add to hiding places and plants: filter. In one of the tanks I have Aquaclear 200 and very happy about it's performance. Though it killed 2 of my loaches this spring. It looked like loaches use their tail a lot - and if it gets stuck somewhere they can not swim away... The strainer on my filter has vertical slots 3-4 mm (~1/8") wide. I saw my first loach stuck with the very tail there - he could move, but could not swim away. I switched the filter immediately, but that second or two were enough for him to die later. Then I maid another strainer from window screen net around the water uptake tube to protect my loaches - I had to clean it quite often though. Now I have a strainer, which was originally meant for Tetra filter, it fits on the end of the Aquaclear uptake tube quite well. The wholes are pretty narrow, so I don't worry about loaches (or just small fishes) getting into the filter.

Water
My tap water is extremely hard (>16° GH) and well buffered. So pH is very stable, but high. I use distilled+tap water (3:1 or so) and add salt when I do the water change. I did kill several loaches a year ago or so, because I was adding too much distilled water and not enough salt, so loaches, being small scaled fish and very sensitive to any bacterial infection, got too stressed. Unfortunately it took me 3 loaches to understand that… that's why I write it here - so somebody can avoid that.

Breeding
That's the hardest part. I am pretty sure one of my Meyrs loaches has eggs in it - I can see, that the belly is thicker, then the tail and head regions, and it's only in one loach. Plus his (her, I guess…) belly has a greenish color - which adds to my suspicion, because they do have bright green eggs. Nobody was able to describe the breeding conditions. They were accidentally bread in well planted tanks. I have seen baby loaches in the store - that was a surprise to the owner as well. There are many reports from Russians on injecting them with hormones to facilitate the breading behavior. Spawning usually takes place right under the surface, the couple swims up and down together. Around 5 to 7 hundred eggs might be released, but they will eat most of it, plus some might not be fertilized. I wish I saw that all by myself. Not yet.


Do you see the loach peering through the hole in the rock? I often see hem doing that - probably they are not brave enough to come out, but want to know what's going on up there!

I'd appreciate any suggestions and information about kuhli loaches.

References:
1. Braz walker. Sharks and loaches.
2. www.loaches.com

Others will be added soon.