Toys for Botia loaches

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

New idea. I might try filling crab/lobster antennae with bloodworms, mussel or Mysis when the original meat is sucked out.

Heck, might try that with some of the snail shells the loaches have emptied. All these provide natural 'foraging' enrichment with the common theme of trying to get food out of a hard shell.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

New type of enriching food I recently found out about. Sun dried earthworms.
A sunny, hot day after a rainy day will dry out any earthworms on the sidewalk or pavement. These earthworms, courtesy of their being dried out, present the following enrichment live earthworms do not:

-Can float, so the loaches may be forced to come and get it instead of it dropping to them like with live earthworms.
-Novel texture that no other food I feed has.
-More challenging to eat than live earthworms. Unlike soft, slimy, flexible live earthworms which can be slurped up very fast, sun dried earthworms' hard, brittle composition means they take more time for a loach to get its mouth around and swallow, and this greater time needed for any one loach to eat also allows for all loaches an even shot at getting a piece, both evening the odds and providing yet another source of enrichment in keeping the food away from other loaches.

 

[Midwater]

Sun dried earthworms ... Novel texture that no other food I feed has.

M MultipleTankSyndrome , you haven't been trying them yourself have you?

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

No, but maybe I ought to have a bite or 2 just to see what it's like for the loaches when they eat it!

 

[jjohnwm]

No, but maybe I ought to have a bite or 2....

One'll likely do...

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Did a little refining to my gelatin-filled mussel shell idea. The refinements will be outlined here, so anyone can see it and try it for themselves.

-Instead of plain gelatin, I intend to use thawing liquid from foods like bloodworms.
This is so the Botia recognize the gelatin as food, which they might not with plain gelatin. But they'd still have to eat through it to get to the food within as opposed to just eating it indiscriminately (because the mere juices of foods are never as substantial as the food itself), so they'd get that enrichment of eating through the gelatin for the best bites.

-I recently came up with the idea of a 'sandwiching' the gelatin with 2 pieces of mussel shell, one whole and another smaller, broken off piece. The way this is put together is as follows.

-Pouring the liquified gelatin into the whole mussel shell until it is almost full, and letting it set.
-Putting the smaller piece of shell (make sure the edges are smooth so the Botia don't cut themselves) on top of the set gelatin.
-Pouring in just enough liquified gelatin to bind the smaller piece to the existing gelatin, but not enough to cover it.

Once that sets, the Botia have to figure out how to remove the smaller piece for optimum access to the lion's share of the gelatin food. I have no doubt of how enriching that will be.

-Thinking a bit beyond mussel shells, I will conduct a trial run of setting a layer of gelatin on decor, pleco-style. I have seen Botia 'graze', 'forage' and 'nibble' on decor which had food on it, so I'm thinking doing those things for gelatin would be pretty good enrichment.
For this, though, I'll use something like Repashy (since they can't dig through decor gelatin due to thinness, all of it should be equally appealing).

 

[Midwater]

You certainly do have some interesting ideas for your loaches.

I frequently talk through my ideas with my own various loaches. But they all think I am mad.

 

[jjohnwm]

 

[andyroo]

Agar or carrageenan might be "purer" as they're plant-based, rather than gelatine coming from hooves etc (is that still true?)
Double or treble the powder : water ratio & use very hot water - this will give you a harder final gel that won't melt as quickly in 80C tank-water.