EMERGENCY (stupid, not sick fish.... Yoyo loach)

[Regen311]

I just got 6 yoyo loaches today. I've read everything about them I could find, but nothing could prepare me for this....

I have a penguin 350 biowheel filter. I heard the filter make a weird noise, and went over to look at it, one of my yoyo loaches had swum up the outtake of the biowheel! He swam into the thing! I saw his little tail sticking out from underneath the biowheel. I turned it off as quickly as I could, and I think he's hiding now so I have no idea if he's ok or not, but I'm terified to turn the filter back on. Since I put them in the tank, they've gone CRAZY cleaning everything, and I know he was just trying to get at some algae or something inside the filter (there's none at all in the tank) and he just swam into it. I don't know what to do. Has anyone had this kind of experience before?

EDIT: I think he did it twice. I head the noise twice, the first time I didn't think to look, but the second time I did. And they've been going to the intake of the filter trying to get whatever they can from that. I put in a few bottom feeder pellets hoping that would fill them up, but if they're anything like every other kind of fish in the world, that won't do a thing. I don't know what to do, this is really freaking me out...

 

[JDogg]

i am confused how can it swim up the intake? isn't there an end to prevent that?
like on this one?

how small are the fish?

i think it is more likely that they are swimming up the outflow and trying to get in under the bio-wheel. i used to have a pleco that would swim up the outflow and sleep in my HOB.

 

[Regen311]

Yeah, that's what i meant. Sorry. He's swimming up the outflow under the biowheel. I'm just worried he's getting stuck under the biowheel.... Like I said, I just saw his tail sticking out. I was thinking of taking the wheels out altogether (it's a double wheel one)... that way he could get in and out without getting hurt. I'm just concerned about taking them out because I know they help get rid of the ammonia/nitrites, etc. because of the bacteria on them. The filter I have is like this one:

Not that it matters too much... it's the same thing as what you showed....

EDIT: ok, either you changed the picture or I am TOTALLY losing my mind. Sorry about that. Yeah, you had it right.

 

[Mosaic]

Loaches do that sort of thing all th time. You're not alone. If you're really concerned, you can take out the biowheels. They really don't do all that much, as you have plenty of other biological media in the tank. They're mostly hype. Just watch for a mini cycle if you do remove them, though that should be your only issue with taking them out.

 

[mugginns]

Why not just lower the water level ?

 

[Regen311]

Because the fish tank is in my living room, and the noise gets pretty loud if the water is falling too far. Also I have live plants so I don't want that much surface agitation, and I've heard it wears out the motor to have the water level too low And I have a betta, who doesn't like the strong current that it makes when the water level gets too low.

 

[mugginns]

Lower it below the filter output just a quarter of an inch or something? The water agitation will help areate

 

[Regen311]

I've heard the agitation on top causes the water to lose C02, which the plants need. That's why I don't do it. It puts oxygen in, but the plants don't use that. I guess if it doesn't hurt them to swim in there, it's not too big of a deal. My main concern is just that these fish don't get hurt...

 

[MyCatsDrool]

I'd take out the biowheels. My peacock eel used to "dumptser dive" (as my good friend and fellow dumpster diving fishkeeper LandGhoti puts it) until he made the fatal dive to the floor.


If you can find a way to prevent it, try to do so. I have since refashioned hoods to prevent such dangerous sporting activity, from moving glass tops closer to the filter outputs, and creating small plastic barriers around the ones without glass. Darn adrenaline junkie fish!

 

[LandGhoti]

Ah, yoyos are master dumpster divers! My yoyo did this one night too. They LOVE to get into the filter and eat whatever has collected on the cartridge. Also, they like current so will try and swim "upstream."

Are your yoyos small? I think they do this more when they're smaller and can fit. Mine is pretty big now (prob. from eating all that "trash"). But the other day I found one of my baby kubotai hanging around in the outflow of my powerhead (not turned on!!) and had to wait for him to back out.

Those little so-and-so's like to get themselves into very unorthodox places. Try sinking veggie tabs, too, to keep them away from the top.

 

[hc8719]

you can remove the bio-wheels, they get you all hyped up when reading about it, only in reality, they do little, and actually cause more problems if you aren't doing water changes often enough (weekly i suppose).

talk to reefmonkey, he designed giant bio-wheels they used in dams (something like that) that the penguin bio-wheels are modeled after (except they are too small to do any real help)

i was reluctant to remove my bio wheels for a bit as well

btw, where'd you get the yoyo's, around somewhere around toledo?

 

[7Enigma]

The biowheels will offer some additional filtration, but at the possible expense of your loach, and the lost CO2 since you're planted, I would remove them.

 

[Regen311]

Awesome! Thanks so much for the help I'm not concerned, as I said, about him getting in the filter, just getting trapped by the biowheel. I'm guessing once I take them out I'll need to do more frequent water changes for a while to keep ammonia and nitrites down? I will just take them out then. I was thinking of either doing that or trying to find some kind of mesh screen to put over the place where he was getting in, but if the biowheels don't do much it might be easier to just take them out.

The yoyos are very small right now. I'm bad at estimating length, but maybe 2 inches? They seem to be little pigs. I guess I didn't realize they ate algae, which is what they seem to be doing, but I could be wrong. I was starting to have a few of the pond snails overrunning my tank, so I thought for sure that would be nough as well to keep them occupied. I have the bottom feeder shrimp pellets and bottom feeder algae pellets and veggie pellets (I alternate between days what I feed them, I also have cory cats and a clown pleco). They are just always eating though!

I got them at Trilby Tropicals in Toledo It was my first time in the store and I LOVE it. Used the discount from the toledo reef club as well, so that helped. I got some floating type plants as well and a background for the tank, but I'm a perfectionist and it's causing me troubles at the moment

Thanks again everyone for all your help

 

[7Enigma]

Again if you were not planted I would say find a way to keep the biowheels since they do help with ammonia removal, but you're only hurting your planted prospects by virtually completely outgassing any CO2 that goes through the filter!

 

[Regen311]

Well, I got rid of the biowheels. I took them both out, and took them apart. I squeezed the cloth type part out into my tank to get as much of the bacteria in them off as possible and threw them away. I'll be checking all the water conditions a lot more often to make sure everything is ok over the next week or so.