Weather loach like loach?

M

mrfryc

Chris Fryc
Aug 17, 2007
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Waterville, NY
I was at my LFS buying food yesterday and was looking around (of course) and noticed what I thought were eels, but upon inspection turned out to be loaches. In my experience with the more serpentine loaches, the gold dojo loach has typically been shorter than the silver weather loach. I've had 2 gold dojo loaches die on me, and pretty much gave up on them, but my weather loach has been with me almost a year and has grown rather long (5" to 6") and is rather thicker/older looking than he origially was. The loaches at my LFS were noticibly longer than my weather loach currently is, but didn't have the "thickness" he had, and they weren't a noticible gold or silver, more like a light brown. I asked what they were and he told me he thinks they're some kind of hybrid that came when he ordered weather loaches.

Anybody had any experience with such a "hybrid" loach?
 
A picture would help. But I agree on the thick cigar loaches, mine is brown compared to the smaller thin one I saw in the same tank.
 
Maybe they're just underfed, the last ones I saw were. Also quite a lot of variation in markings. They a food fish in some countries so they don't always get good care.
 
Here is my weather loach. I bought him from Petsmart this grown, I believe it is mature, not sure how old or even a juvie. One odd thing is he has one normal eye and the other eye is inverted.

100_2856.jpg
 
Hi. I was just going to stick to lurking here for a while, but I noticed you didn't get much for replies here.

The loach at the is not really likely to be a hybrid (you're not meaning hybrid as a mix between the gold dojos and regular by the way, are you? You seem to be referring to them as two different species in your fist post). It's more likely to be either the Chinese weather loach, which has mostly the same species characteristics as the more common weather loaches but a slightly different appearance, or it could be one of a good number of other varieties of loach. If you have the time and still want to know you can look through the species database at http://www.loaches.com

As far as your own loach, unless it's a bit stunted it's probably not full grown. They're actually about 9-10" full grown. There are many reports that the gold weather/dojo loaches are smaller, but there should really be very little variation in their size, or anything else but coloration for that matter.
 
canucksfan1 said:
i have 2 weather loaches, and they are both about 6 inches in a 55 gallon and have not grown (at least not notciabley) in a year
Click to expand...

Eh, I'll admit most of what I know is from research rather than experience, and there is a lot of variation between individual fish, too. I imagine there are some that do max out at 6". It could also be that the growth slows down with age though. I guess unless some folks with long-term experience step in, I'll just have to wait for mine to grow out to be sure. :)

I do notice in your sig though, that you have the weather loaches listed in the same tank as clowns. One thing that I do know for sure is that weather loaches and clowns have much different temperature requirements. Clowns need temps of 78ºF to 83ºF (25-30°C), and the weather loaches need to be at 50- 77ºF (10 - 25ºC) (I linked the names to their species profiles in case you want to check up on it yourself).
 
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