Keeping kuhli loaches means accepting that your fish keep different hours than you. These slender, eel-like loaches with their bands of brown and salmon spend the bright part of the day threaded through plant roots, tucked under wood, or half-buried in the substrate. A typical day of care is therefore split: almost nothing while the lights are on, and one deliberate feeding ritual as the tank goes dark.
Morning: the seal and surface check
Kuhlis are escape artists that probe every gap, so the morning check is the lid: tight, with filter and cable openings covered. Glance at temperature and filter flow, and accept that you may not see a single loach — a hidden kuhli in daylight is a comfortable kuhli. If you do spot one draped over a leaf or hanging in a plant, enjoy it; loaches in a settled group often rest in odd, visible places.
Daytime: leave the bottom alone
There is no midday feeding and no need to stir the tank hunting for them. Their world is the substrate and the tangle at its surface, and it should be soft sand or smooth fine gravel they can push through without tearing their skin, with leaf litter and wood giving them shaded lanes to travel. The daily discipline is simply not disturbing that world: no gravel-vacuuming raids into their thickets, no rearranging the wood they live under.
Evening: the feeding they actually attend
As the lights dim or just after they go off, drop in sinking pellets, a small wafer, or frozen bloodworms scattered across the front of the substrate. Within minutes the group emerges, weaving over the bottom in a loose, snaking train, whiskers sweeping for food. This is your daily census: a healthy group of five or more comes out together, bodies plump and unmarked. It is also the only reliable time to judge condition — a loach that stays buried at feeding time two nights running, or one whose bands look faded and body thin beside its tankmates, is worth a water test and a closer look by torchlight before the main lights come back on. Food offered only in daylight mostly feeds everyone except the loaches.
When someone else runs the evening
The loaches' whole care hinges on a routine an uninformed helper would never guess — feed fish you cannot see, after dark, at the bottom. In KinsLe, a Care Pass hands a trusted sitter exactly that: temporary, clear access to the loaches' routine and key details while you are away, so the after-dark feeding happens on schedule even though the fish stay invisible until it does.