Can I Get Clown Loaches?

attibones

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In one of my 55 gallon tanks, I have a bit of a pest snail problem which came with a few new plants. The eggs are every where and we are having a hard time getting all of the little things out. In the tank I also have five nerite snails as well as eight rummy nose tetras (which will eventually be twenty RNT). I was thinking about getting some clown loaches to assist with the problem, as I can't get any assassin snails (stupid snail codes). Would this be a good idea? I've never kept them before.

If they won't work, are there any other smaller loaches which would serve this purpose?

Also, would they eat the nerite snails?
 
Well, the tank isnt big enough for clown loaches for very long.... but there are hundreds of species of loaches out there... you could always pick a smaller species...
 
But either way..... yes... loaches will eat your nerites.
 
Would black kuhli loaches suffice then? I'm fairly limited in my choices. It takes my LFS a week to order fish, and I've already crushed about fifty snails. I'm worried the snails will get out of hand soon. My sister has gone out to see about some kuhli loaches. If they are not suitable for our tank, we will return them. PetsMart only carries four species of loaches, but my LFS could order any species for me, it would just take a week or more for me to get them.
I suppose I'll pull the nerites out and put them in one of my other tanks if we do end up keeping loaches. I'm not as worried about them, though.
 
no khulis will not eat your snails for the most part most botia loaches will. here are some sutible for your tank
yoyo loach
zebra loach
skunk loach (mabey dont know much about this one)
but remeber loaches like to be in groups of 3 or more
 
ill up minimal in shoal  to 5+
 
if tank was bigger id do clowns as they are awesome ....snail killers!!
 
I had a feeling clown loaches would eventually get too big. I'm stopping by one of my fish shops to see if they have any other sorts of loaches, such as the yo-yo loaches. I'm definitely getting at least five, even if I only keep them temporarily. I'm hoping they have SOMETHING in stock. Eventually I'll have a tank big enough for clowns (I'm planning a very large tank build after I graduate uni), but for now I suppose I'll have to find something else to eat these blasted little pests.
 
Get assassin snails istead. They will fit any size of a tank and eat pest snails.
 
Spend 5-15mins per day manually picking out snails by hand. It sounds like you only want a snail eater to solve a snail infestation, when the underlying issue is you are feeding too much (so the snails eat the surplus and breed).
 
Your sig suggests you have Corydoras, which means you need to be careful what loaches you ever add to this tank, because many loaches will outcompete the catfish for food and they are far more likely to be aggressive. "Kuhli" Loaches and their relatives are exceptions, Dwarf Chain or Zebra Loaches might work, but it would need careful observation.
 
If you ever do get loaches, you really need to think about far more than a group of 5, 10+ in a suitably stocked tank is a far better way of keeping them. They are very social like Corydoras, but they also form a complex hierachy, in larger numbers one individual is less likely to be singled out.
 
These guys would go in my other 55 gallon. I have two and only one is in my sig. :)

We only feed this tank every other day, a pinch so small that the tetras eat everything in under two minutes and nothing ever falls to the bottom. However, it does have a lot of diatoms growing in this tank, so I believe these pest guys could be eating off that. We only found a single adult, and two very small guys, plus tons of eggs. We have removed each plant and rinsed and scraped off each egg, but evey time we look in the tank, we see more eggs and tiny snails.

Our eventual plan with this tank was to have around twenty or more rummy nose tetras and a good size school of panda corydoras. We really didn't want to resort to any loaches, but we can't think of anything else to do.

NOTG, if you have any other solutions, I would love to hear them. I don't think we would want ten or more loaches, as that would mess with our planned stocking.
 
attibones said:
NOTG, if you have any other solutions, I would love to hear them. I don't think we would want ten or more loaches, as that would mess with our planned stocking.
 
 
 
Assassin snails.
 
Iiriva said:
 
NOTG, if you have any other solutions, I would love to hear them. I don't think we would want ten or more loaches, as that would mess with our planned stocking.
 
 
 
Assassin snails.
 
I believe he said he is unable to get any of those
 
Exactly. They are outlawed in Mississippi...
 
I bought YoYo loaches for the same reason and they've kind of become the feature of the tank. They are right little gluttons and will eat out of your hand (actually, just stick your hand in the water and they pick it clean). They never stop eating though, ever. They outcompete everything that I can't hand feed so that can bit a tricky. I'm trying to figure out how to get mine to lose weight!
 
We're going to try them and see how it goes. Hopefully they won't make the tetras starve.
 
I hope they work out for you. Make sure to get pics? They're so cute :D
 

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