# Help with Pregnant Kuhli Loach



## flyinphill (May 15, 2015)

I am hoping someone on here can help me figure out what is best to do with my one of my newest additions to the zoo:

Yesterday I moved a 125gal fully planted and stocked aquarium to my house. I would post a pic, but I can't figure out how to do it. Anyway, in the process of moving, we discovered one of the three kuhli loaches in the tank is female, and is quite pregnant. I have never had kuhli's before, so I wasn't quite sure what to do with her. This was totally unexpected, unplanned, and last-minute, so on the fly we decided to set up a maternity tank for her. I had enough extra equipment laying around to put together a 20 gallon wide tank using water, plants, substrate, and one of the filters from her home aquarium. I originally put her in by herself, but information I read suggested that she may do better with companionship, so I caught one of the others in the big tank and put that one in as well.

But now I don't know what to do next. Does anyone on here have experience with successfully raising baby kuhli's? I don't know what to do about temp, food, egg-laying bedding, feeding the fry, basically nothing. Will the other fish in the tank try and eat the eggs or fry, and should I remove her and her friends once the eggs are laid?

Anyone here that has experience with kuhli babies, I would really appreciate any info you can give me.


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## Summer (Oct 3, 2011)

Giving you a bump up in hopes someone can help ya! [MENTION=1223]susankat[/MENTION] maybe


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## flyinphill (May 15, 2015)

Thanks for the bump. I have no idea how long the gestation period should be, but she still appears to be pregnant.


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## FistSlaminElite (Sep 2, 2015)

Well first off she's an egglayer, she's not pregnant she still needs a male, as soon as she sees the conditions as "right" and there's a male around she will pretty much to ballistic, scattering eggs in plants and he will follow and fertilize them, to breed them I would take a whole school of kuhlis, place them in an aquarium that's SUPER heavily planted with stem plants (cabomba , rotala, ect...) and has a sand bottom, feed them frozen food, and daily make it "rain", keep the water level low but take a water sprinkler and pour colder water into the tank so they think its the rainy season, after that inspect daily for lime green eggs, as for food for fry I would start with infusoria then move to bbs and so on


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## FancyFish (Jul 22, 2015)

I would add more to the group and move the group to a tank of their own.

Set up the tank with driftwood, Java fern and plenty of moss covering the bottom of the tank to protect the eggs (kuhlis will eat the eggs) as well as provide food.

Allow mulm to collect on the bottom of the tank as this will be the food for the fry as well.

Use a sponge filter and maintain the tank as normal.

Cannot advise on keeping with other fish as they are in a species only tank.


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## flyinphill (May 15, 2015)

I appreciate the responses.

She ended up in the aquarium with 2 other kuhli's, both of which I assume are male. I had already placed them with a lot of fern, plus some anubias nana, grass, ludwigia, and Amazon Sword. I also had a very large piece of ornamental driftwood with a ton of passages and crevices, plus some natural driftwood as well. There is so much stuff in the aquarium there is hardly any visible substrate, which should make them very happy. I did not put sand in the bottom, however they did burrow a nest under one of the pieces of natural driftwood.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, she laid the eggs somewhere, as could be seen by her drop in size. I looked extensively for the eggs, but could never find them. Maybe I should have moved stuff around to try and better locate them, or maybe moved the adults out once I saw she had laid, but I just let them be. At this point, I have seen no eggs or fry, so I assume that they either did not hatch, got eaten, or did not survive. So I am close to putting them all back in the main aquarium. 

The original owner of the aquarium told me she has had eggs multiple times, so maybe next time I can get her moved out and have a better-prepared maternity aquarium for her. I can try and get sand and moss started in the maternity aquarium just in case.


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## junebug (Jun 17, 2015)

If you want to try breeding them intentionally, you're better off using things like spawn mops and/or moss. Though honestly if your main tank is well planted, you're probably best off leaving her in there to spawn.


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