[cs_gardener]

Re: Affect of Kuhli Loach on substrate question

Mine don't dig much, if at all, since they have plenty of hiding places. I use about an inch of Eco Complete over soil and they've never disturbed the soil. I've had them in there about 3 years now. Go for 6 of the kuhlis, they like to have friends and you'll have plenty of room in a 75G.

 

[cs_gardener]

Re: Affect of Kuhli Loach on substrate question

My kuhlis (perhaps with the help of bettas) wiped out the ramshorn snails and pond snails in their tank. I still have plenty of Malaysian trumpet snails and they don't seem to bother my nerites. It took a while for them to annihilate the ramshorn snails because the adult snails seemed to be able to survive, but no young snails survived to replace them as they gradually died. In a larger tank (mine is 20 gallons) I imagine that some snails would survive to keep a healthy but not overwhelming population.

The more hiding places you offer the kuhlis the better. My tank is very heavily planted and I offer a few driftwood hiding places plus a dense mat of Anubias nana petite I use as a foreground (a favorite kuhli playground). They can disappear at will and I think that helps keep them from burrowing into the substrate. They seem to favor the absolute tightest places they can squeeze into so be careful that the screen of your eheim intake is intact. I found a kuhli in my 2213 because one of the bars in the intake had been damaged and I didn't notice it.