The Dojo is originally from North Eastern Asia and China but have been imported and introduced into other habitats in various places around the world not always with good results. This Loach is considered a food source in some Asian countries. The Dojo Loach can be considered a good fish for the freshwater fish beginner because it generally has undemanding water parameters , except for the temperature.
Provide them with a softer substrate because they like to burrow. Sand or aquarium gravel that is rounded should suffice. They are accomplished escape artists and will find any open holes in the top of the tank. Make sure your tank hood is well secured. It is interesting to note that this fish can breathe in air when the oxygen levels in the water become depleted.
So, if yours has jumped from the tank, try putting it back in the tank as soon as possible. You never know Provide some hiding places for your loaches to help make them feel more secure.
A cave of some sort or a bunch of plants real aquarium plants or artificial can provide really good hiding places. Feeding the Dojo Loach should not be a problem. They will accept nearly everything you offer them. Give them a variety of aquarium fish foods such as sinking shrimp pellets , frozen or freeze-dried blood worms and vitamin enriched flake foods. Care Level : Easy, good for a freshwater fish beginner. May be aggressive with much smaller fish, but should do fine with most fish with similar care requirements.
A full-grown Dojo loach in the aquarium measures around 6 inches in length, although they do grow to a much larger size in nature. The Dojo loach is a peaceful character, although these are pretty lively, active fish, especially at night.
The fish spend much of their time scavenging on the bottom of the tank for scraps of food or burrowing and digging in the substrate. One interesting quirk of the Dojo loach is its habit of becoming hyperactive when the weather conditions change, which is thought to be related to fluctuations in barometric pressure. These are very friendly fish that can be trained to take food from your hand, and they even seem to enjoy being touched and petted! Dojo loaches make a good addition to a community tank, provided that their companions are non-aggressive and not small enough to be regarded as a food source.
As the loaches spend most of their time on the bottom of the tank, fish species that prefer to hang out in the upper regions of the tank are the best choice as tank mates. To keep your fish healthy and thriving, always use high-quality fish food. Cheap foods are usually stuffed with padding that has no nutritional value and can even make your fish sick.
In the wild, Dojo loaches eat insects, insect larvae, algae, small crustaceans, worms, and other tiny aquatic animals. Captive Weather loaches are not picky feeders, and they will happily accept all types of live foods, tropical flakes, sinking pellets, and frozen foods. Give your fish a balanced diet of flakes or tablets every day, as well as algae wafers, and live or frozen blood worms, daphnia, or tubifex. These fish also eat small snails, which can help to control the mollusk population in your fish tank.
Feed your loaches twice daily, only offering what they will clear up in a couple of minutes. Dojo loaches need a tank of at least 55 gallons. The tank should be long rather than tall and extend to a length of at least 4 feet. These feisty fish can and will jump right out of the tank, so make sure that your aquarium has a tightly fitting lid.
Weather loaches are great diggers, spending much of their time rooting through the substrate for scraps of food. Dojo loaches look best when displayed in a setting that replicates their natural habitat. So, choose plenty of smooth stones, driftwood, caves, and twisted roots that provide shelter and somewhere that these inquisitive fish can explore.
These loaches are not suited to a brand-new setup, as they need the absolutely pristine water conditions that are only provided by a mature tank. Good water movement is essential, as well as excellent oxygenation. With that in mind, we recommend an undergravel filter for loaches, as well as an external canister filter or powerheads. The aquarium water should have a pH in the range of 6.
Loaches cannot tolerate brackish water. Dojo loaches prefer subdued lighting conditions, so pick an LED lighting unit that allows you to adjust the lighting levels in your tank accordingly, and be sure to pick plants that can thrive in low light conditions.
Dojo loaches require pristine, well-oxygenated water to thrive. Vacuum the substrate, underneath rocks and wood, and around the base of plants to remove uneaten food, fish waste, and dead leaves.
Rinse the filter media in dirty tank water once a month and change the media when required, as directed by the manufacturer. Dojo loaches are pretty hardy fish. However, they are highly susceptible to poor water conditions, and they have faint body scales, which can leave them vulnerable to attack by parasites.
Also, loaches are very sensitive to some medications, so you should always treat them in a separate hospital tank. These fish are very active, curious creatures that should spend much of their time exploring their environment, digging, and burrowing in the substrate. Although loaches tend to hang out on the bottom of the tank, you will also see them venturing to all areas. Health Issue. They have additional pores on their skin to absorb oxygen and can also breathe through their intestine.
Even if there is no water, they can tap this oxygen for living in muddy or damp areas for a long period of time. The loaches that are breeding naturally are also causing concern to society, as they are proving to be a threat to most of the smaller insects and fish that are found in and around their habitat.
Studies are going on to see how this can be minimized. The loach looks more like it belongs to the eel family with a long body and is either golden brown or greenish-grey in color. They have a tiny mouth, thick lips, and six barbells. This is a friendly fish and enjoys being touched and pampered, and can be trained to eat out of our hands making it an ideal pet.
The loaches are characterized by pectoral fins, and the male has more pronounced fins than their female counterparts. The size of Dojo Loaches in an aquarium can be 15 cm long, whereas the ones that grow in the natural surroundings can grow to almost double the size.
Their life span can be anywhere between 7 to 10 years. This fish prefers acidic backgrounds, and the ideal pH levels can vary from 6. They also amongst the fishes that prefer cold temperatures and thrive well between 24 to 28 degrees Celsius. Warmer temperatures are not very conducive for the loaches, and this can impact their life span to about four years. Since they also like to live in groups, it is always better to keep more than 2 of them together as they like to be cozy with their bodies touching when they rest.
The Dojo Loach is easy to feed, as these fish can eat anything from fish feed to snails. They have the ability to eat up anything that comes in contact with them, and then they will just spit over the foods that are not required. The loaches just adore green peas, but they need to be skinned before putting them into the aquarium. They also like to eat cooked or blanched vegetables, so they can be fed some of these as an alternative. While those growing out in the open feast on small insects and larva, the ones that are being nurtured in the aquariums can be fed fresh or frozen shrimps, fish pellets or tablets, or mosquito larva.
Loaches can be used to treat snail infections in tanks, as they love to devour the snails. However, there are views that the speed with which they eat up the snails is not great enough to take care of the infections and hence may not be a great remedy.
The other problem that needs to be noted is that they like to eat up fish eggs, so if there are fish that are breeding in the same tank, then it is better not to have the loaches around. Since they can be fed many times a day in small quantities, it is better to give them a variety of food in a day — some wafers of algae at one time, some sinking pellets, live earthworms for one serving, and maybe some peas for one.
They are sure to enjoy all of these different varieties of food. They also eat the smaller fish that are in the tank, so it is close to impossible to put smaller fish in the tank with the loaches. There is some sort of difficulty in breeding the Dojo Loach. The females are slightly bigger and more wholesome than their male counterparts, and there is very little knowledge of how exactly to breed them. Of the few points that we know, one of them is to have a cooler temperature when it is time to breed, and also to reduce the light in the aquarium so that the loaches can breed naturally.
The ideal time of breeding starts from winter to spring — so the light needs to be adjusted accordingly. The light can be brought to a bare minimum during winter and then as spring approaches; it can be increased gradually. Ideally, when spring arrives, the loaches should be getting about half a day of light. This will trigger breeding amongst them. While breeding happens between one of the males and the females in the tank, the other adult fish especially the males act in a very agitated mode.
Unlike their usual stance, they even step up to the topmost area of the tank and try to even reach out to the female who is mating. However, all of these are very temporary behaviors and settles down soon. When the fishes are ready to breed, the male fish approaches the female fish and starts courting it. This courtship can last for several hours, and in the process, the male would have engulfed its female completely. This position is altered only when the complete breeding is over — that is when the female has laid the eggs, and the male has fertilized them.
This happens a few times with the female laying anywhere around fifty eggs each of the times and the male fertilizing it. Overall the whole courtship process can take about 3 to 4 hrs. Breeding in a tank is considerably difficult, but the temperature of the water can instigate it. The fertilized eggs that are dispelled from the body of the female start to hatch in about 2- 3 days. The male and the female who had gone through the breeding process have nothing to do when the baby fish or fry start swimming around.
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