Feeding Kuhli Loaches

[Babysharkdoodoo]

I'm wondering how much to feed my 6 kuhli loaches. In the a.m. I throw some bug bite pellets to sink, and in the evening they get bloodworms, but I'm still not sure if I'm under or over feeding the bloodworms. The package comes in small cubes. The package says to feed as much as can be consumed in 30-45 seconds, but that doesn't help since I don't usually see the kuhlis come out right away... and they scurry when they see me spying lol.
I do scatter the worms over the tank to try and distribute them...
If someone is familiar is there a general guideline for how much to offer a group of 6?
Any advice is appreciated!

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

You are over feeding them. You only need to feed them once a day and only a very small amount. They have small mouths and small stomachs. You also want the food in one spot so you can tell if it's being eaten. If you spread food around the tank, bits get stuck under rocks and in plants and rot, causing ammonia problems. Food should be out the front in the open where you can easily see it.

If you put food in, then step away from the tank, wait and see if they come out for it. Leave the food there for 10-15 minutes and then remove it. If they are hungry they will come and eat straight away.

[Babysharkdoodoo]

Originally Posted by Colin_T

Hi and welcome to the forum

You are over feeding them. You only need to feed them once a day and only a very small amount. They have small mouths and small stomachs. You also want the food in one spot so you can tell if it's being eaten. If you spread food around the tank, bits get stuck under rocks and in plants and rot, causing ammonia problems. Food should be out the front in the open where you can easily see it.

If you put food in, then step away from the tank, wait and see if they come out for it. Leave the food there for 10-15 minutes and then remove it. If they are hungry they will come and eat straight away.

So I thawed about 1/2 cube and put it in one place, about half an hour later I noticed 3 of my 6 loaches on the area and all the worms gone. Now that I know it's being eaten, do I need to put in more?

Also put in an algae wafer for my Otto cat because he's nearly cleaned all the algae out of my 20 gallon... but my kuhli has been eating it...
Worried the Otto will starve now :/

[Colin_T]

You can try feeding more but if they aren't eating it all in 30 minutes go back to half a cube.

If you increase the lighting time on the tank by an hour or two per day, you can encourage algae to grow and that can supplement the Otocinclus diet.

[NStalgia]

Originally Posted by Colin_T

Hi and welcome to the forum

You are over feeding them. You only need to feed them once a day and only a very small amount. They have small mouths and small stomachs. You also want the food in one spot so you can tell if it's being eaten. If you spread food around the tank, bits get stuck under rocks and in plants and rot, causing ammonia problems. Food should be out the front in the open where you can easily see it.

If you put food in, then step away from the tank, wait and see if they come out for it. Leave the food there for 10-15 minutes and then remove it. If they are hungry they will come and eat straight away.

Is it enough to just do a bit of water change everyday if you can't get or can't find the food that are stuck on rocks and other stuff? I've only started on hardy fish so I've never really had to worry much about it but now I'm trying some fish that might be a bit more sensitive.

[Colin_T]

You can do a small water change each day but most people do a bigger water change each week. If there is uneaten food then you can use a fine mesh net to scoop it out or syphon it out with some water.

If you do syphon a bit out each day you should still do a decent size water change each week. A 50-75% (I prefer 75%) water change each week is good for diluting all sorts of bad things in the tank.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

[NStalgia]

I usually do 75% once a week. I'm just concerned about any uneaten food that I can't see being stuck in the tank. How long does it take for any uneaten food to become toxic? I've made them a food tray now so I can easily siphon any uneaten bits out

[Colin_T]

Uneaten fish food or a dead fish will start producing ammonia as soon as it's in the water. However, t normally takes an hour or so before you start to see any sort of ammonia reading and there has to be a bit of food there to do that. Most established biological filters can deal with a small amount of uneaten food, it's lots of uneaten food that causes sudden ammonia spikes and kills fish.

One or two bits of bloodworm are not going to be an issue. Half a block of uneaten bloodworm will cause water quality problems.

[NStalgia]

Thanks. But now that you've mentioned dead fish, will adding snails or shrimp help deal with it? I have nano fish and I'm not gonna be able to always find all of them if they die.

[Colin_T]

Shrimp and snails will eat leftover food and any dead fish in the tank. Bigger shrimp will catch and eat small fish so only keep small species of shrimp if you have nano fish. If you want snails, then a mystery/ apple snail or a nerite snail would help clean up uneaten food and dispose of any small dead fish pretty quickly.