Half-banded kuhli loach

Pangio semicincta

Also known as Kuhli loach, Coolie loach

FreshwaterFish

Half-banded kuhli loach (Pangio semicincta) — AverageWalrus · CC BY-SA 4.0

Care at a glance

Temperature: 70–79°F (21–26°C)
pH: 6.0–7.5
Adult size: 3.9 in (10 cm)
Minimum tank: 28 gal (105 L)
Temperament: Peaceful
Social behavior: Schooling
Swim level: Bottom
Difficulty: Medium
Breeding: No record
Rarity: Rare
Origin: Sumatra, Malay Peninsula
Family: Cobitidae

Overview

The kuhli loach is a slender, eel-shaped bottom fish that is far more confident in a group, so keep at least six and ideally more. Kept in numbers they come out to forage together, often in a writhing knot, instead of hiding alone. They are completely peaceful and make good companions for small, calm community fish, spending their time sifting the substrate and squeezing under wood and roots. A soft sand bed is important so they can burrow without scratching. Feed sinking foods such as pellets, frozen bloodworms, and blackworms, offered after lights-out since they feed mostly at night. A group suits a tank of around 105 liters or larger.

In the wild

Pangio semicincta comes from Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, living in slow, shady forest streams with soft substrates buried under leaf litter and tangled roots. The water is soft and warm, about 21 to 26 C, and slightly acidic to neutral at roughly pH 6 to 7.5. A home for this loach needs a fine sand bed it can dig into, plenty of driftwood, leaves, and plant cover, and dim lighting. Tannin-stained blackwater conditions and gentle flow mimic the peaty streams where it lives, and they encourage it to come out and forage.

Good to know

Pangio semicincta is a member of Cobitidae, the true loaches, and grows to about 10 cm. It has a worm-like body banded in dark bars that do not quite meet underneath, the half-banded pattern behind one of its common names. Hidden below each eye is a small, erectile spine typical of the family. Deliberate breeding is essentially unrecorded in aquaria, and the rare spawnings that happen are accidental, so most kuhli loaches in the trade are collected from the wild.

Did you know

For years the common kuhli loach in shops was labelled Pangio kuhlii, but most of those fish are actually Pangio semicincta. The true P. kuhlii is a separate species from Java that only rarely enters the aquarium trade.