Clown Loach

[keane]

I have never worried about anything more than salt, temp, and hidding places. The salt question is a good one, my whole tank did better when I added a little salt, just read the package it will tell you how much to add.

Clown loaches are scaleless fish and should not, under any circumstances, be subjected to salt in their tank.

It will burn and cause far more damage than good.

The same applies to corydoras and any other scaleless fish.

steve

 

[cane76]

the colour seems to be coming back so maybe it was the stress from the move

 

[cane76]

looks like i spoke to soon i think hes got ich ffs
sorry for double post

 

[kat and james]

no meds added only dechlorinater last sunday when i hoovered the sand and did 15% water change

hmm...I would just keep doing what you are doing as far as tank maintanence goes, im stumped as to why your clown loaches have remained grey for so long but its posible they have a desease of some sort coming on- i would personally just add some melafix to the tank to help aid their imune systems and see if this changes anything, keep doing those water changes and avoid adding anything else to the tank .
Keep us updated on your loaches even if their condition doesn't change, i will go look up some things on your loaches condition and see if i can pin point anything on them .

you shouldn't advise someone to put meds in the tank when you don't know exactly what is wrong with the fish in the first place!!

clowns do pale out when the feel scared and/or when they are moved. and as it turns out these clowns paled as a consequence of their move from tank to tank.

glad to hear they are looking a bit better. i always find that their colour brightens when they are fed frozen/live foods on a regular basis (a couple times a week)!

kat

 

[big mick]

I bough 3 about 6 months ago and they were all about 1.5" and their stripes were black......One died 3 months ago during a rare white spot outbreak but of the remaining 2, one is about 4" while the other is only about 2" but the bigger of the 2 is faded and has been for months but showing no signs of illness.

I heard somewhere there are 2 types of clown loach but Im not sure how true this is.

 

[kat and james]

there are two types of clown loach. they come from indonesia, but indo is a really large country, the two types of clowns come from sumatra and borneo, the differences between the two types are a consequence of this seperation.
of the two the borneo loaches are less colourful than the sumatran ones.

i found this info about graying out

"This is a term we've come to use here as a description of one particular color mode seen in our fish. New owners of Clowns are always posting panicked messages, assuming that there's something drastically wrong with their new fish. Usually, there is no problem at all.

Clowns are able to change their coloration within certain parameters. These changes can be based on mood, aggression, possibly stress and other factors. The illustration shows a fish sitting at a slight tail-down attitude with fins spread. This position will often be taken accompanied by "graying out", during mock fights between Clowns. These fights are often referred to as "Sparring", and are used to determine the natural pecking order within a group. People have theorized that "gray" fish are sub-dominant when they remain this color for prolonged periods, but I have noticed that my Dominant (Alpha) fish is often the one showing this color. They can change from regular coloration to "gray" quite quickly, particularly at feeding time, when many squabbles break out. Depending on one's tank lighting, this color change may show a kind of greenish, metallic sheen to the whole body, most noticeable over the stripes. The edges of the stripes tend to have a sort of paler area than the rest of the stripe."

hope that helps!!

kat

 

[Teelie]

Also, dominant or leading Clowns tend to be larger and the subdominants are smaller so it could be as simple as that. Many of the Clowns you get now are raised in artifically created ponds or in sectioned off areas of rivers where they are normally found and bred there. Few Clowns are truly wild anymore.

 

[The-Wolf]

I heard somewhere there are 2 types of clown loach but Im not sure how true this is.

there are acutally 3 types of clown loach
the borneo, the sumatran and the short bodied clown
http/www.loaches.com/species_pages/botia...thus_short.html

 

[kat and james]

that is very interesting, i have never even heard of short bodied loaches!! i think ours are sumatran loaches, and they are my favourite fish

kat