Care should always be taken when handling a clown loach. As already mentioned, clown loaches eventually grow to tank busting sizes, and require an equally large aquarium. This problem is compounded when you realize that clown loaches must be kept in a school of at least six individuals, with each growing up to 18 inches 45cm in length. If they are kept in shoals of less than six fish, they will become stressed and spend most of their time in hiding.
With that being said, clown loaches can be kept in smaller tanks when they are young due to two unique traits. The first being that clown loaches have a very slow adult growth rate. While they will quickly grow to a size around 5 inches You will have many years before a clown loach even comes close to their maximum size — which gives you some wiggle room in tank selection. The second reason is that clown loaches will shoal with individuals of almost any size.
With most fish species, they will only school with fish of a relatively similar size. Clown loaches on the other hand, will happily pile into a cave that contains everything from fry all the way up to behemoth adults.
So now for the million dollar question — how large a tank do clown loaches need? The bare minimum that should be provided for a school of loaches is a 55 gallon litre aquarium, and this will only be acceptable while most of them are still juveniles.
As they begin to reach their adult sizes, their tank should be upgraded to a 75 gallon litre tank — or ideally a gallon litre tank. Once an aquarium has been chosen, the next step is choosing a filter. Clown loaches prefer to have a significant amount of current in their tank, and this can be provided with either a power head, or a large HOB hang-on back filter. A canister filter can be a good choice for a clown loach tank, but just be sure that they are provided with some current in another form.
I would strongly recommend choosing an Aquaclear Power Filter for a clown loach tank. This filter combines excellent filtration with a durable design, and it will keep your tank sparkling clear for years to come.
Since they are found in rocky streams with abundant plant life, any aquarium that they are kept in should be modeled after this. It should contain large, rounded river rocks though sand will work too , and there should also be a significant number of plants. Clown loaches are opportunistic omnivores, and will feed on insects, invertebrates and plant matter in the wild. In the home aquarium, they should be fed a diet that is mainly comprised of high quality flake food and shrimp pellets.
They can also be fed live or frozen food as treats, and they will eat any snails that they can find in the aquarium. To ensure that they get enough food, they should be fed sinking food in the form of pellets, or frozen food that tends to sink to the bottom of the tank.
Some good frozen foods are blackworms, blood worms and in some cases brine shrimp, and Hikari Sinking Wafers is one of the best sinking foods you can feed them. They should also occasionally be fed vegetables, and their favorites are blanched and shelled peas, and zucchini medallions.
These only need to be feed approximately once a week, and vegetables can be substituted with herbivore flakes or spirulina pellets. Clown loaches, like most other species of loaches, will also eat any available snails in their aquarium.
However, they tend to ignore the larger species of snails and have trouble eating Malaysian trumpet snails. They should never be purchased to clean out a snail infestation, but they will help to keep snails numbers in check. Reports of people successfully breeding clowns loaches in home aquariums are extremely rare. But if you want to make an attempt to breed them, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances. Obviously, the first thing that you want to do is to find a sexually mature breeding pair.
They usually take quite a while to reach sexual maturity, and the best way to ensure that you have a sexually mature pair is to only use fish that are at least 6 inches long.
The larger the fish, the better your chances of successfully breeding them. You can sex clown loaches by looking at their tail fins. The males tailfin is bent slightly inwards while the females looks more like a traditional tailfin.
The females will also be quite a bit plumper than the males, but this can be difficult to identify without a fair bit of experience. Once you have a pair ready to breed, they should be kept in a tank that is heavily planted, with perfectly maintained water. Nitrates should be as low as humanly possible, and the pH should be right around neutral. They must then be conditioned with live food, and should be fed several times a day. Females at this point will begin to rapidly gain weight and after a few weeks of conditioning, mating may take place.
Like most other egg layers, they should be removed after spawning and their eggs will hatch within several days. After several days, the fry will become free swimming and must be fed at this point. They can be fed baby brine shrimp, or any of the other commercially available fry foods. After about two weeks, they will be large enough to accept powdered flake food and will begin to grow very quickly. All comments are moderated and will appear after they have been approved. Comments are generally approved within 24 hours.
Iv got 9 clown loach mixed with a few tetra, guppys, platys. They even spend alot of time swimming against my power head just as they would be doing in a natural stream and any mess made from them is soon sucked up either into my external fluval or to my internal uv fluval who knew a few little uv bulbs could condition the water so much.
Clown loaches will definitely prefer sand to gravel. As for the sand though, you need to be careful with it. Since you already have plants, your odds of this happening are far less though.
Also, care must be taken when stirring up the sand in the bottom. Always turn off your filter if your cleaning or stirring up the sand. It can get sucked up into the impeller and damage it. Beyond that, sand is great and I have it in almost all of my tanks. Not only does it look better, but it is much easier to clean than gravel.
I hope this helps. Hi, looking for some advice! My clown loaches have been acting strange for last few months.
I did think they were breeding but after reading how difficult it is to breed them I honestly forgot about it. I moved them 3 days ago from a 30 litre into my litre tank as Ive moved my giant gourami into a litre tank! I have removed eggs as I was worried they would be eaten and put them back into 30litre tank! What should I do! What do you think about my kuhli loach missing his barbels??
I would just keep on eye on it. Fish are generally pretty hardy when it comes to injury, and the barbell should begin to grow back slowly over time. But unless it starts to look stick, it should be fine if you just leave it alone. And kuhli loaches almost always eat after lights out, so just feed them just before the lights go out and they should be happy. And I made a cave for my fish out of non-toxic air dry terra cotta clay.
Would you recommend a type of coating to make it safe for an aquarium?? I though terra cotta clay would be best because flower pots are made of terra cotta and they are usually put in aquariums.
What do you think? I have had two Black Kuhli Loaches for a year and I noticed a month ago that they had babies!!!! Not sure how many there are because they stay hid. Does anyone know how many they have at a time? I saw one of the little ones today an its growing!!! That means that you provided them with some excellent conditions in their tank. In most scenarios, you will probably have between fry, though that number is really an estimate.
You could have less if you have hungry fish in your tank, or you could have more if they had something like Java moss to hide in. I hope that helps. I have two adults and now I have seen one little one…………………. I have read that this is rare in an aquarium. Just wondering what to expect. I would appreciate any help any advice. They absolutely love micro bloodworms.
Great addition to any tank. Live plants, and loads of hiding places, along with Cattapa leaves, makes for happy loaches, yeah!. Were they immediately active during the day, or did it take time? I had always heard the unbanded loachs were mostly nocturnal too.
I just purchased my first loach, I bought 3. I only see 2 at any given time. I have a 20 gallon tank with small comminity fish. I have gravel, as I hate sand had it and couldnt stand it. Will they ge ok with the gravel? I have lots of real plants, a cave, driftwood, and tubes for hiding. Im just worried about the gravel. Any advice? Especially with a smaller group like you have. Then you just discovered the greatest community of like-minded people anywhere. Board index FAQ. The forum for the very best information on loaches of all types.
Come learn from our membership's vast experience! Do you feed live food? Yes, Every day. What do you feed your loaches? Post by celticchrys » Wed Jan 04, pm Hello, everyone! I have two clown loaches that I have had now for about 5 years.
They are around 4 and 5 inches long respectively, excluding tail fins. After looking at all of the photos here of big fat clown loaches, I am wondering if I should be feeding them something else!
The staple item in their diet is Tetrimin Tablets. They seem to prefer these to most others. I supplement this with Hikari algae wafers and once in a while, a few Malaysian Trumpet Snails.
I had a small tank set up for a while, just to culture snails for the loaches, but I have not set it back up since I moved in May. Other than adding snails back into their diet, which they love!
What else should I offer? What do you loach-keepers feed your fish? The seed culture can sometimes be purchased from your LFS, given by a friend or caught from a local pond. You might be adding natural predators not only of the daphnia but also of young fish fry.
Brine shrimp can be cultured in specially purchased set-ups. These are available from most local fish shops. It is necessary to add pure salt aquarium salt to the water, which should be kept aerated. The eggs are also available from LFS or mail order. Most starter cultures include food for the shrimp, but if this is not available fresh yeast or a fine fry food can be used. Some loaches will also eat snails particularly clowns and yoyos — the fish literally sucks the snail body from out of the shell.
The loaches will fight over them, and have been observed swimming around with a pondsnail stuck to the snout. If you have a surplus of snails, feed the snails that can be removed easily, leaving the others to refresh the snail colony. Some loaches go crazy-mad for vegetables, and will generate all sorts of interest when these foods are placed in the tank. Not only that, but loaches need some vegetable in their diet.
Foods that loaches seem to particularly enjoy are cucumber, courgettes zucchini , marrow, romaine lettuce, squash, brussel sprouts, cabbage, lettuce and peas. Melon and even banana have been tried, with varying degrees of success.
Plants and algae also form an important part of a loach diet. A general rule of thumb, the more expensive the plant, the tastier it is to a fish! It is important to include vegetable matter in a loach diet as these fish are generally herbivores, and so this must be taken into account. If there is no other vegetable matter for them to eat, please do not leave your loaches to graze away on the algae in the tank, and then wonder why they rip your prize Amazon Swords to shreds.
Place in the blender, add gelatine, and freeze. You can wrap this paste in edible seaweed if you like make sure the seaweed has been washed thoroughly and cleaned of any "nasties". If you do this, score the seaweed package before freezing to make it easier to break into portions.
The loaches will eat the seaweed as well as the paste. Or try the following for the more discerning palette: Note that all measures are approximate and you can add other ingredients as you wish. Combine all ingredients except gelatine, and mix thoroughly. You can put the stuff in a blender to get a more homogenous mess sorry, mix if you want. When mixed, dissolve the gelatine in boiling water enough to give a thick, but flowable mixture when combined into the mix, use your judgement.
If the mix is very cold, pop it into a microwave for a short time to warm, then add the gelatine and combine. Spoon portions into plastic, ziplock bags or freezer bags about 10" square. You should aim for an amount that squeezed out flat is approx. Lay the filled and sealed! When cold, pop the bag flat into a freezer to set solid.
When you want to feed the fish, break off a lump and drop in the tank. Loaches go loopy for it. Everything eats it, everything grows, and everything gets good, wholesome food without the risks of feeding live food.
There is a trick to getting fish to regenerate damaged fins by having them ingest the B12 vitamin. This not only works but also for fish that eat floating pellets or other foods that expand as they absorb waters, it's easy to get it into their system. Drop the pill into a glass filled with a small amount of warm water and let it dissolve first. Add the food and let it draw in the water and then feed it.
Anything that can be dissolved in water could be fed this way. The same principle applies for adding any medicines. With live food such as worms, brine shrimp etc. No kidding! We tend to feed our fish too much. Everyone does it. The fish come to the glass and practically beg for more. Who can resist the temptation, poor little starving hungry loach?
On the contrary, unless young fry are present, it is better to introduce a fast day once a week or even twice. It will do the fish no harm; because in the wild no fish expects to eat daily.
A mature aquarium will contain microelements, especially algae, which can be browsed should the fish really be hungry. Many people panic when leaving for holidays and purchase an item sold as 'holiday food' from the local shop. This is not necessary, nor are these blocks necessarily a good idea as some pollute the aquarium. If you are only going away for a week, then let your fish go hungry.
It should do no harm. If your absence is likely to be longer then either invest in a timed automatic feeder or make up small packages containing the daily amount of food and ask one of the family or a neighbour to feed it to the fish. If you do ask someone else to undertake to feed your fish, do ensure that you provide the food in handy little packages.
Folk who have never kept fish cannot judge the correct amount; this could cause a major disaster in your absence for which they cannot be held entirely responsible. Like all captive kept tropical fish, loaches benefit from being fed small quantities of food little and often.
If you can only get flake or other prepared dried foods, this will be perfectly satisfactory. However, if you can add more variety by using some of the other foods mentioned above, then your loaches will certainly appreciate it. You may have to persevere when trying new foods, it may take a while for the fish to catch onto the idea that it is OK to eat. Remember to remove any uneaten food before it starts to pollute the tank.
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