[AGA Member] some planted tank-loach quarantine questions

[Heather J Gladney <hgladney@comcast.net>]

I'm interested in trying a small loach, Botia striata or striped loach, 
that Karen Randall's magazine column recommended for eating snails in 
planted tanks.  However, I'm using Turface MVP as the gravel in my 
planted tank, which I like a lot.  But I'm unsure if that would be too 
rough for the loachs' mouths, as I understand many of them need fairly 
fine sand.   I've got a trio of  bronze cories in there now, and their 
barbels seem to be okay, but it's hard to tell.  They got their barbels 
damaged with regular aquarium gravel (bought at LFS) that I used to have 
in another tank, and they seem to be doing better on the Turface now.
Does anyone have any experience using Turface with cories or loaches?
Also, I'm concerned about coping with new-fish quarantine issues such as 
parasites.  I undertand from one of the loach websites (some great pix & 
ID) section on diseases --
http://www.loaches.com/copper.html
-- that most are wild-caught and may come in with internal parasites.
One of their archived comments:  ..The loaches imported from Malaysia 
are notorious for having internal parasites. The best thing to cure them 
with is Levamisole hydrochloride. You can get this drug from a farm feed 
supplier. It is available as 'oblates' or infectible. Use 800mg per 10US 
gallons and make sure your pH is about 6.6. If the pH is above 7 the 
drug is made unusable...
Since my current display fish were never treated that way (I only fed 
them Tetra parasite food during their quarantine, I've had them about a 
year) I'm wondering if I ought to dose them as well with the Levamisole 
as a precaution.  They're all eating well, full tummies, no signs of 
wasting.
I also understand that the best time to buy wild-caught loaches is 
sometime during the breeding season, through March, which adds a time 
constraint.  Does anybody know whether this is likely to be a problem 
with finding striped or yoyo or Queen loaches?
I may have to go to San Francisco/Bay area FS, asI know of some fairly 
good LFS, but lately I see lots of weird fin rot and tumor stuff.  Ich 
would be easy!
Since one or another of my fish--possibly those cories--just spawned 
tonight on the powerhead nozzle and on some Bacopa leaves (eggs are 
clear turning white, sticky, "about .7 mm to 1 mm size, not over 1 mm" 
is a friend's metric estimate) I just put those eggs into my quarantine 
tank (which gets regular "update refills" from the main tank) and it's 
anybody's guess if anything will hatch from them.  Before I get loaches, 
I'll have to do something about another quarantine tank!


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