My yoyo loach disappeared?

I have 1 Yoyo loach in a 14G tank with 5 neon rainbow fry. It's been really hot lately due to a heat wave. This afternoon, I went to check on my fish, I couldn't find the Yoyo. I took out the ornament and floating moss. I even dump over my filter but he's no where to be found. I check around the tank in case he jump but no body. Do Yoyo's bury themselves in the substrate? This is very puzzling.

 

I had a corydoras that used to bury himself... he forgot to dig himself out though, as if he was preparing his grave...

Anyways, have you checked every nook and cranny in your tank? Many fish have a habit of crawling into spaces so that they are COMPLETELY out of sight

 

My tank is pretty sparse. I have 1 ornament, some bamboos and floating moss. The substrate is sand underneath small gravel. There's really no where to hide, unless it's hiding in the sand, completely buried. I'm very puzzled by the fact that I don't even see a body, if it were dead.

 

Surprise! My yoyo re-appeared again! I guess it was just _really_ good at hiding. Like I mentioned before, sparse tank with hardly any hiding spaces. No clue where it was hiding. One crazy thought was that it somehow got into the filter tube from the top. I have a sponge covering the tube itself so it doesn't suck up my baby shrimp (it used to be a shrimp tank). However, I find that to be highly unlikely. In any case, I'm glad it's not dead.

 

Are any of the ornaments hollow? Loaches absolutely adore stuffing themselves into small spaces. Sometimes they get stuck so we have to be careful.
carol

 

My only ornament is a little Japanese lantern tower kind of thing. Other than the hole in the center, there's nothing else. I picked it up, out of the water, put it back in a bucket with just a tiny bit of water while I was searching for it in the tank. It was barely immersed in water for about 15 minutes. If it were in there, I think it'd be dead by the time I put it back in the tank. It's still a mystery to me where it was hiding.

 

It was barely immersed in water for about 15 minutes. If it were in there, I think it'd be dead by the time I put it back in the tank. It's still a mystery to me where it was hiding.

I don't know, I had a Clown Loach get stuck in a hole in a piece of huge driftwood one time. By the time I had hauled the driftwood out and chiseled him out with a screw driver and caught him after he flopped all over the floor I thought he would be dead also. It never even slowed him down. So you just never know.
Glad he is alright though
Carol

 

Since we got our Loaches, we've had several scary moments until we realised the little brutes are quite comfy staying in an ornament even while it's being taken out of the tank!.. now, as we take out each piece while cleaning their tank, we do a headcount!.. and if one of them is spotted squashed into some dark corner, we wave the ornament around in the water gently until he/she gets the idea and swims out.. time-consuming I know, but we love our fish ( 'specially our Loaches), so we take our time and make sure they're ok..