Clown loachies

[Beesboer]

I have currently 2 clown loachies. The one is very active while the other one hardly comes out of his cave, I don't really see him eat.

Thanks!

 

[aberdeen aquarist]

clown loaches are very gregarious, ie they like the company of their own kind, think of them as shoaling fish and you get the idea. so I would put more in and you should see them all more. the way it is now, the active one is the boss and only has one other to boss around, if you add more there will be more fish to boss around and therefore less stress on any single fish.

 

[platypus]

I agree with a_a, definitely get a few more clowns if you have the room, preferably ones that are the same size as those you already have. Clowns like to hide a lot anyway, so hopefully it's nothing to worry about.

There's an excellent article on Clown Loach FAQs here - hope it helps!!

 

[Beesboer]

But, will my tank be big enough for 3 of them? I'm going to ad approx 10 more fish to the community, e.g. Pleco's, Cory's, Discus, Redtail Shark ex.

 

[platypus]

Hrm well 272 litres = 71 US gallons. The rule is 1 inch of fully grown fish to 1 gallon of water. Clown loaches grow to about 8" in captivity, so having them certainly won't lead to overstocking - not sure if you'll still be OK once you add up the fully grown sizes of all the other fish though! But I think I'll leave that for you to calculate sorry for the kop out!

As a general note though, I'd say it's probably better to make sure that the fish you do have are kept in optimum conditions and are happy and lively so that you get the best out of them, rather than getting lots of different types of fish that you might not then see in all their glory because they're unhappy. Hopefully though you will have room for everything you want and it won't be a problem !

 

[Beesboer]

Thanks allot Platypus! I think i will go and buy another clown as soon as possible!