Clown Loach Problems ?

[JohnBull]

Hi,


Seem to be having a problem with some of my recently introduced small Clown Loach. Basically some are showing signs of distress. They seem to be in distress,but then suddenly swim off ? One other seems to play dead,then disappears and sits at the bottom of the tank quitely or even upside down ? All the other fish are OK,had the water tested by LFS and it's fine. Do water changes twice a week,clean filter pads as per norm and keep a healthy set up. Currently feeding flake for Guppies,Tetras ect. Tank is Tropical community with around 50 gallons capacity,recently cycled using fishless fish method. Subtrate is gravel, with undergravel filter and Bio filter which came with Tank (Jewel Trigon 190 )

Whats wrong ?


John.

 

[AdamHawk]

One thing I know from clown loaches, they will play dead, and need to be in groups of four or more, they need real plants and benefit from sand. They need hiding places. But be aware they will lay on backs, bury themselves under sand, and seem wierd...they are quite boring in fact lol.

 

[JohnBull]

Hi,

They actually 'play dead' eh ?

Sounds exactly like what might be happening then, although if thats the case then they are very good at it. Dont currently have any real plants, although this incident might just change all that. Dont want to change the subtrate yet.


Thanks for replying.



John.

 

[bangerdemon]

One thing I know from clown loaches, they will play dead, and need to be in groups of four or more, they need real plants and benefit from sand. They need hiding places. But be aware they will lay on backs, bury themselves under sand, and seem wierd...they are quite boring in fact lol.

Hi,

They actually 'play dead' eh ?

Sounds exactly like what might be happening then, although if thats the case then they are very good at it. Dont currently have any real plants, although this incident might just change all that. Dont want to change the subtrate yet.


Thanks for replying.



John.

Plastic plants are OK for clown's (they have been for my school of 18 that vary from 3" -7" anyway). In fact, they will strip live plants without eating them, out of boredom (as I found out with my amazon swords). Sand may be a better substrate, but they thrived on gravel before I changed to sand. Clowns are far from boring, and mine will follow me from one end of the tank to the other. As already said, they should be kept in groups of at least 4, but will possibly benefit from having more. Easy to tell when clowns are happy, because they will make "clicking" noises (which can get annoying at times)!!!

Alan

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Clowns boring?

I have 18 tanks up, I breed rare expensive plecos, I keep discus and wild altum angels. And of all my fish the last to go will be my clowns, most of which I have had for over 9 years.

I used to have more and when I realized I had too many I sent a few to a friend. Now when I set up their tank I made a mistake and used big gravel- 1-2 cm gravel with some pieces over 2.5. As we all know clowns love to dig. So how can a poor clown dig in big gravel? It can use that lovely sucker mouth to pick up a piece of large grave (or a small stone) and then toss it aside. The will dig a pit, one stone at a time tossing them all over the place to get that morsel down below. So what does this have to do with clowns being interesting and my friend getting clowns from me?

His tank also had somewhat large gravel and his clowns never dug in it at all. Within a week of my clowns going into my friends tank he reported back that he now had a tank full of clowns tossing pebbles all over the place. My guys taught his guys how to throw stones. Boring? No way.

 

[@ombomb]

Tank is Tropical community with around 50 gallons capacity,recently cycled using fishless fish method.

clowns can be pretty sensitive to infection, particularly whitespot so a recently cycled tank isn't ideal for them

also i'm afraid that while they grow very slowly, a 50G is no where near big enough to support them long term

 

[Rynofasho]

Ya 6'x 2' x 2' (125 US gallon) is minimum.