Clown Loach Survey

anewbie said:

No clue what you are saying. Many people keep clown loaches for multiple decades. Perhaps you are replying to a specific post but without context it sounds more like giberish.

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lol.

GaryE said:

lol.

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Thanks for the confirmation.

I'll take a guess that my gibberish was my saying something you disagreed with. I'm glad to debate the merits of buying small fish that grow large - everyone says they'll get a larger tank but very few do. It needlessly causes fish deaths.
Saying you have no clue is a weak start to any debate, but I'll assume you were trying to squash any discussion with the "giberish" line. Them's fighting words!

Fighting's boring. So give me solid, experience-based reasons why buying fish guaranteed to outgrow almost everyone's set up is a wise idea. The fact they are cute (which is why I made this fish buying mistake 30 years ago - their cuteness is undeniable) isn't good enough. Why think short term for fish that live and grow longterm? If they are seen as just fish and disposable ornamental products, that's a common enough approach. It's not mine - when I have fish for a while I grow to like them more and more. I don't have any tanks l;arger than 2m, 6 feet, so I won't make the clown loach mistake again.

Where are you coming from here? I'm listening.

I had a customer from Vietnam who had an absolute monster that he inherited from his father in the '90s that was supposedly in its 60s. It was easily over a foot and a few fingers thick.

Spent most of its life in a pond before coming to Canada where it lived (hopefully lives still) in a 350 gallon aquarium.

GaryE said:

I'll take a guess that my gibberish was my saying something you disagreed with. I'm glad to debate the merits of buying small fish that grow large - everyone says they'll get a larger tank but very few do. It needlessly causes fish deaths.
Saying you have no clue is a weak start to any debate, but I'll assume you were trying to squash any discussion with the "giberish" line. Them's fighting words!

Fighting's boring. So give me solid, experience-based reasons why buying fish guaranteed to outgrow almost everyone's set up is a wise idea. The fact they are cute (which is why I made this fish buying mistake 30 years ago - their cuteness is undeniable) isn't good enough. Why think short term for fish that live and grow longterm? If they are seen as just fish and disposable ornamental products, that's a common enough approach. It's not mine - when I have fish for a while I grow to like them more and more. I don't have any tanks l;arger than 2m, 6 feet, so I won't make the clown loach mistake again.

Where are you coming from here? I'm listening.

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I would think i tworks fine to keep 8 clown loaches in a 400 gallon tank; but your statement seems to imply that clown loaches are simply too large for any size tank... or perhaps i misunderstood.

I love this discussion as it goes along with the Black Shark, Bala Shark, Tinfoil Barb, Common pleco discussion and then gets into murky water as it touches Arawana's. Where is there a size limit for a fish in a tank? Personally, I have kept baby clown loaches and larger versions of the others. But Oscars are a good example of a fish that can grow to its maximum size and be happy in a home aquarium.

itiwhetu said:

Where is there a size limit for a fish in a tank?

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I would prefer it if the only aquarium fish we could get, grew to no longer than 6 inches. However, people want different things including big predatory fishes.

Predatory fishes that are ambush hunters and grow to 12 inches long, can be kept in aquariums because they are not open water fish. But 12 inch long oceanic/ pelagic fishes need a huge tank so they can move.

anewbie said:

I would think i tworks fine to keep 8 clown loaches in a 400 gallon tank; but your statement seems to imply that clown loaches are simply too large for any size tank... or perhaps i misunderstood.

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I would say that clown loaches are to be avoided by all but the people with the largest tanks. They're sold in stores as young juveniles, and grow. They live over 30 years. If you have a huge tank already and love the fish dearly, then you can make a go of it. But keeping them alive for 5 years? Nah. That's not a success.

We like the idea they grow slowly, but I guess when you've had fish for a long time as I have, slowly becomes relative. Whether you see an accident in slow motion or sped up, there's still a crunch.

I think we can present such opinions without people launching personal attacks. I may be wrong, but I'm not incoherent. I'll argue against all big fish in small tanks. I tried these things, and I have seen many do the same as I did. I was able to rehome my Satanoperca daemon, I sold my adult red-head Tapajos and winemilleri and I was responsible for the early deaths of my clown loaches. I didn't enjoy any of that. I needed tanks larger than my 6 footer.

My slowly developed rule of thumb for Cichlids, since I am into them for their behaviour, is that you research the largest adult size, then provide them with a tank with a front glass 10 times that length, and you're probably at a good start. If they're one inch long when you buy them, heading for 12, then 120 inches it is, or no buy. There are other projects galore. I think the same rule applies to fish like clown loaches.

Big fish in large tanks are a different story. I have a friend with a 16 foot tank, and an eight foot square acrylic. He has a really nice set up in the 16 footer, with some large fish kept properly. The tank is bigger than a trailer, and is kind of astonishing to sit back and watch. Every detail is designed to emulate the natural environment of the fish.

I think that in our hobby, we make a serious mistake when we think we can make fish adapt to us. We have a wonderful opportunity to learn with fish, but lesson five (no one gets there in year one) is that the lifestyle of the fish comes first, otherwise, what are you watching? It's the lion in the old fashioned zoo cage versus the lion you have to stand for a bit and watch for because the zoo has a more natural enclosure. Fewer fish, no crowding, appropriate sized tanks - we can make habitats that no one will look at and wonder how a fish survives in such conditions. Or, why a fish survives in crammed tanks.

ShinySideUp said:

Old thread I know but just seen it as don't get here very often.

I have six Clown Loaches in a 6 foot, 700 litre tank and for years they have been absolutely fine: no ammonia, no nitrites and enough nitrates to keep the Vallisnaria going for years too; weekly water changes. I haven't added any new fish, new decorations or anything new at all for over five years but all of a sudden I have a major problem. My largest Clowns are having serious skin problems and look like their skin is sloughing off, like a snake's. I looked online but there was nothing useful so I phoned my LFS and found an experienced Clown Loach owner who had had this problem himself some fifteen years ago and actually lost one of his fish before he found out the problem. I took a water sample to him and he tested it for all the usual -- all fine -- but he suspected the pH was off and tested it. It was below 5 (as far as his test kit would go) and was exactly the same problem he had. The answer? Crushed oyster shells. I have put some in tonight and will see how the fish are tomorrow.

As I understand it:

Apparently, the pH of the water here in Cornwall is artificially 7 but there is no calcium carbonate in the water and as such the pH drops over years as the substrate loses its CC to the tank water. The acidity increases to the point where clown loaches can no longer tolerate it and they reach a tipping point where they will die within a few days if nothing is done. After his water checks revealed the low pH I bought some crushed oyster shell and put them in the filter this evening. I will update over the next couple of days in case anyone else comes across this with their Clowns.

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Further to my post above. I put the crushed oyster shell in the filter that same evening and by morning all trace of the lesions on the bodies of the Clown loaches had gone. PH is now up to 6.8 so just acidic enough. The Clowns themselves are like they have a new lease of life, active, eating (a lot) and altogether again (there was a time when they didn't really mix much). This change in the health of the fish has been dramatic but the deterioration happened over such a long time that I didn't really notice it until a tipping point was reached. Anyway, the oyster shell has brought them back from the brink and I shall check my pH weekly from now on. Nothing had been added to the tank for five years, the ammonia was nil, nitrites were nil and nitrates were around 60ppm. There was no reason to think anything was wrong...until it was.

Moral of this story is, just because everything seems ok doesn't mean it is.

Clowns are my favorite fish. I currently have a 150 gal planted tank for them. My two oldest came to me in 2002 and are now in the 10 -12 inch range (TL). I have a total of 9. the third larged one is almost 10 inches and the rest are in the 4+ to 6 inch range. I am 4 and know most of my clowns should outlive me. I am ramoing down from 20 tanks to 1 or none over the next couple of years. my clowns will be the lasy of my fish to go.

My earleist clowns were small and in smaller tanks. I upgraded them to larger and larger tanks intil the current 150. Over the years I have lost a few.

Mu favorite thing about my clowns comes from the fact that I used a larger rounded pebble substrate for them. This is not ideal. But my fish were not to be daunted and to dig in the gravel they learned to pick up the pieces one at a time and toss them aside to get down ro the the desired morsel. Because, I found a gal in one of my fish chats who was starting a home based fish business a free truckload of assorted tanks in 02, she came to get them with the gift of 4 clowns at about 4 inches. My current two largest came from those 4. But those 4 clowns gave me more than I could keep back then and I sent an online fish friend several of the ones I already had. About two weeks later I got an email from this person complaing that my clowns had taught his fish to throw stones.

To this day I can occasionally hear a stone bouncing off the class every now and again.

Here is a poor pic with most of the clowns hiding, sorry.

TwoTankAmin said:

Here is a poor pic with most of the clowns hiding, sorry.
View attachment 153291

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Wow, a gorgeous feller. Great, dark colour with those white edges. Only found out recently that they change colour depending on the substrate you have... Interesting trait, goes well with such an interesting fish.
What are the fish with the red splotches? I see them everywhere, but the name won't come to me.

They are Sahyadria denisonii aka redline torpedo barb. The ones below were being quarantined for a few months ahead of being sold at a weekend event in 2018. Unfortunately and sudden illness forced me to back out of the event and I kept the fish for myself.

In the '80s and '90s I kept 4 clown loaches in a 55g, they seemed like the happiest fish in the tank. I had no idea how large they'd eventually get, and my LFS then wasn't terribly knowledgeable either. The loaches grew from 1" to about 5" but that took years and I enjoyed them until selling my entire setup in a move.

Fast forward to now, my 10 year old daughter was gifted a 10g setup and I immediately got very small angels and loaches (3). I now know they'll need a very big tank down the road. I'm setting up a 75g now, which, while not large enough long term, will let us enjoy them until we have to part with them or commit to a huge tank. I will not let it get to a point where they are crowded and suffer. There are some co-ops that will take them when that time comes if I'm not up to said huge tank.

These videos convinced me never to keep clown loaches. Just need too many in a group that grow too large and live far too long to be happily kept in normal aquariums.

This video is beautiful and hypnotising! They are HUGE, and you can see the social interactions between the fish. This how they should be living, if they must be in captivity.

I think the hobby is slowly having to face ethical concerns about which fish we keep and how, in a similar way to how many public zoos have stopped keeping some big cats and elephants, because they faced up to the fact they could not meet the needs of those animals.

Continuing to do something, just because "that's the way we've always done it" doesn't really cut it anymore.

All you need to succeed with clowns is the proper sized tank and the proper parameters, of course.. It will be able to hold a number of them at all sizes if you do it right. You can find some good info on clowns and keeping them here https://www.loaches.com/ There they will tell you to keep at least 5 clowns but the more the merrier. Emma turner kept over 50 in the tank with her legendary clown, Marge.

Incidentally, I also keep one of the smallest loach species as well- Ambastaia sidthimunki aka dwarf chain loach. I have had some of them almost as long as my biggest clowns.