khuli loaches behaviors Question

my khuli loaches are laying on top of each other is this normal also they always seem to go in circles for hours at a time also do they prefer tropical pellets or algae wafers?

 

Yes, it is normal for them to pile up on one another. Many loaches do that. They are very social fish.

Swimming in circles is a bad sign - I would treat with prazipro.

Mine eat NLS thera a pellets.

 

well one of my loaches used to swim in circles till i got his other 2 friends now they pile on each other

 

Swimming in circles is often an indication of internal parasites. I have had good success with it.

 

Jaysee, is this just for khuli loaches that this is for or all fish? Ive never heard that swimming in circle indicates parasites.

 

How many do you have? They swim crazy its normal,the more there are the more comfortable they will be and there should be lots of little caves for them to cram into, the more hiding there is for them the better the more they will come out. some where I read that they are most comfortable when there is about 10 or more of them in a tank,
I have 13 of them, and they are super crazy at feeding time, they really only come out for food then back to the caves they may come out at night idk,my kuhlis eat flake food that falls to the bottom along with blood worms and brineshrimp I've tryed every type of pellet and they just don't care for them.

 

Hello; I have kept khulis for decades. They will eat pretty much anything I feed my other fish.
I have observed khulis swimming in large circles from time to time including the ones I currently have. I know for sure that swimming in circles does not always lead to poor health. I have on occasion kept a few individuals for many years that would have such behavior.
For example I have had three black khulis for several years now and at least one, perhaps all, do swim in circles from time to time. I cannot tell which one it is but do see all three still alive. This swimming behavior will go on for hours over a day or few and then stop. They then resume their normal behavior. While I suppose they could have internal parasites that trigger this behavior, I have read somewhere that loaches are sensitive to barometric pressure changes and have wondered about this.
At any rate my khulis have done this from time to time over the five decades I have kept them.

 

For fish in general - incessantly swimming in circles is not good. I have never observed my kuhli loaches swimming in circles like that, though there may be a misunderstanding on what that means. Fish doing laps around the tank is not a problem. A fish trying to catch it's tail, is a problem.

 

I have to agree. I was at my LFS and saw a giant danio swimming in circles like that. It never stopped and it was almost like it couldn't. A few hours later (my pet store visits last a while) when I went back to check on it - it was in the last twitches of death.

 

Thanks

I recently had one of my new boesmanis swimming in circles while in quarantine - treated with prazipro (which I was going to do anyway - SOP) and it's been fine since.

 

I had bought 3 khuli loaches for my 150 but soon realized they weren't compatible with my fish so i had to catch all 3 but was only successful catching one 2 days later i caught the other two for the two days the khuli loach was alone he would swim in circles on the glass but now that i put more in hes calm not swimming in circles that is until food goes in and he goes crazy i researched it and everyone says its normal khuli loach behavior i just wanted to make sure

 

Yes, they do swim in circles. Mine often do circles going up and down front glass (rather than around). It just shouldn't be a compulsion, which like ava said looks like they can't help it.

When I kept them in the hex they would swim around and around the perimeter of the tank.

 

Tight circles are a nono, wide and not so circlish circles are fine. I had a Goldbarb doing the spins before he died.

 

thank you everyone