A kuhli loach eats from the floor of the tank, sifting and nosing along sand and smooth gravel for tiny morsels, so a healthy diet starts with food that actually sinks to where this fish lives. Surface flake meant for mid-water swimmers will mostly be gone before a kuhli even notices it, and a loach that depends on scraps often stays thin while its tankmates look round and well fed.
Build the base around sinking foods
Make a small sinking pellet, micro wafer, or crumbled bottom-feeder tablet the everyday foundation. Kuhlis have small mouths and a constant foraging style, so fine pieces they can work over slowly suit them better than one large wafer claimed by bigger bottom fish. Scatter the food across a wider patch of substrate near their hiding places instead of dropping it in a single pile, which lets several loaches feed without crowding into one corner. On a soft sand bed you will often see them nose into the surface as they search, a natural behaviour that coarse sharp gravel makes harder.
Add the meaty foods kuhlis evolved to hunt
In the wild these loaches pick tiny invertebrates and organic matter from leaf litter and riverbeds, and that protein side matters for condition and colour. Rotate frozen bloodworms, daphnia, baby brine shrimp, and finely chopped blackworm-style live foods a few times a week alongside the dry base. Variety is not indulgence here; a loach fed only one dry pellet week after week misses the range of nutrients that small live and frozen foods supply. Thaw frozen portions in a little tank water first so the pieces separate and sink evenly instead of landing as one cold clump.
Feed after the fast fish have slowed down
Timing solves the biggest kuhli problem, which is competition rather than appetite. Drop their sinking portion in shortly after the main lights go down, when danios, tetras, and other quick surface feeders are less active and the loaches are emerging from under wood and leaves. Watch from a distance for the first few evenings to confirm food is reaching the floor and being found, rather than dissolving untouched into the substrate. If a loach's body looks pinched behind the head or its stripes sit on a noticeably skinny frame while tankmates thrive, the feeding routine, not the food choice, is usually what needs fixing first.
Keep the floor clean enough to eat from
A bottom feeder's dining room is also where waste settles, so diet and housekeeping are linked for this species. Vacuum debris from open sand patches during water changes, but leave the planted, sheltered areas kuhlis love from becoming sterile, and never let uneaten sinking food rot overnight on a regular basis. Feed an amount the group clears within a couple of hours, and reduce the portion if wafers are still softening on the sand the next morning. Stable, clean water keeps their barbels and skin in good shape while they forage.
Keeping track of who fed the loaches, and whether the sinking food was actually seen being eaten, is exactly the sort of quiet detail KinsLe Care Teams helps a household share, with each evening feed marked complete once it is done.