Beginning of a 20 gallon hillstream tank

[rstrobel]

I saw mellowvision's 30 gallon hill stream tank a while ago and it kind of inspired me to do something similar in the future. Earlier this week I was at my LFS and stumbled onto a shipment of hill stream loaches that they had recently received. They had them in a tank with no algae at all and didn't appear to be feeding them, so I just had to take 3 home with me.

I put them in an empty 20 gallon I had sitting around, moved a cycled Emperor 400 off of another tank over to the 20 gallon, and added sand and some rocks from my pond that are covered in algae. Right now I have the Emperor 400 set up so the heater and airstones are hidden inside of it and I'm trying to come up with some way of hiding the filter intake too.

The cabinet the tank is sitting on top of has a lot of room under it so I'm contemplating putting together a veggie filter or a sump under it.

Out of the 3 fish, this is the only one that has been comfortable enough to come out of hiding so far and let me get a picture of it. Its coloration is different from the others; the are much darker, have smaller and lighter colored spots, and seem to be flatter. Anyone know exactly which species it is? It's too sunny to take a full tank shot now so I'll try to get one tonight. I need ideas on other tank mates. I've been looking into white cloud mountain minnows but I am not sure yet. Any suggestions or comments are welcome!

[jpappy789]

Neat! Which species are they?

Any chance of a full tank shot? :D

[fishycat]

What a cutie! Looking forward to fts!

[fishorama]

Congrats on a cool fish! It may be this http://www.loaches.com/species-index/gastromyzon-ctenocephalus
Have a look around http://www.loaches.com/species-index/species-index for the others, they often come in mixed species shipments. Look at the -myzon ending for some but not all hillies.

[petluvr]

I love these little guys, only thing is why do you have a heater in with them? They are a cooler water species.

[rstrobel]

I have the heater because I've read they need to be kept in the high 60s to low 70s. I also have a blue gourami and female betta in the tank so I have it set to 72 degrees for the time being. I think the one is Gastromyzon ctenocephalus but I'm still unsure on the others. They are all getting quite comfortable now and have been eating algae like crazy.

This was the best I could do for a full tank shot. It doesn't look too great now, but I will be making improvements as time goes by. My rams in my 55g started spawning last night so I've spent a lot of time today setting up a tank for any surviving fry. They couldn't have picked a worse time, the tank really needs to be cleaned and I'm afraid that doing it will upset them. If you look hard enough you can see that the rock the female is hovering over in the 2nd picture is covered in eggs.

[fishycat]

Wow, did you have the gourami and betta in the other tank? That looks perfect for the top swimmers... I'm guessing you moved them because of the eggs? How is your betta with that powerhead?

[rstrobel]

yeah, I used to have them in the 55g but had to move them. the gourami has become really aggressive towards my 4 rams but for some reason she gets along really well with the betta. I was afraid that the gourami would chase the rams away from their eggs.

the betta doesn't seem bothered by the powerhead, I have it pointed downwards so she has plenty of room to swim up top. I am keeping an eye on her though just in case.

[rstrobel]

ha... check out how much algae the loaches have eaten off of this rock in the last two days.

as you can see in the second picture, as soon as i approach the tank with the camera and point it at something, the betta tries her hardest to get in the picture.

[Rbishop]

Hungry little fellas!

[fish-n-chips]

Very cool looking loaches, have quite the appetite too.

[jpappy789]

They seem to be adjusting nicely LOL

[rstrobel]

hoping to get a bunch of work done on this tank this weekend. my otos and rams decided to spawn simultaneously so i've been pretty busy

[rstrobel]

more pictures.

[fishycat]

Looking great!

[Bubbles2112]

Nice pick up!! Those are really neat fish!