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Hello everyone. Its been a while. Does anyone here keep the chinese butterfly loach, Pseudogastromyzon chenni? I got two of them about 2 weeks ago and they are doing fine. What do you feed them? Mine seem to like romaine lettuce that has been allowed to sit in a tank for a day. I tried cucumber, but they did not really eat it. How do you tell the difference between males and females? I have read different things from different sources. I believe i have a male and a female. One isnt as wide or as dark in color as the other. I believe this to be the female. They are both the same size at 1.5 inches.

This is an omnivore and although clearly well adapted for taking algae off rocks they also need their diet supplemented with other foods to make up for the micropredation and opportunistic scavenging they do on nature. They will help themselves to sunken flake and wormy foods as well as algae. Stuff like algae wafers, catfish pellets, some bloodworm and tubifex will do fine. Just make sure they get the foods and some algae and let them worry about the balance. Provide for them as you would for a cory that also happens to take algae. A 50/50 split on vegetable and animal based fare is about right.If yure a bit short on algae you can give them blanched greens and lettuce, maybe a little zucchini, or cucumber.

More of a lookout than diet is perhaps the need for high oxygenation and a little water flow. They really do need it, and they do very badly in still stagnant waters. Keep those nitrates very low too, perhaps less than 20 ppm for them to do well, and dont let them overheat in summer either. Try not to let temps go over 76f.

Large flat stones placed near filter outflows are the perfect place for them to hang out.

As for sexing- the males are the ones with the large protruding nostrils, the build and colour arent always indicative.