Loach Research

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Vicentismybetta

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Oct 21, 2009
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The other day i was at a petsmart in Oklahoma City that had apsolutly no pest snails. There was maybe one snail in a tank instead of several scattered throught all 75 tanks. When i asked how they took care of the problem they said clown loaches. Well I started looking into getting one and was disappointed to find that they get huge! I have a 20G tank and i was hoping to get a small loach that could stand mollies and not out grow my tank. My mom almost got me a clown the other day and im glad she didnt because even if we put it in her 55 wed still have to get rid of it evenualy right? I read that they are ment to be in a minimum of 75 gallons at adult age.
So can anyone help me out? I want a nice bottem fish that will help get rid of most of my snails, (pond snails) and will get along well in my 20 G.
 
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Yoyo, Zebra and Golden Zebra/Kubotai loaches are really good at eating snails :D
I've got 2 Zebras and a golden zebra, I added 30 Ramshorn snails last week, today there is ALOT of carcasses lol.
 
20gal is probably just a little too small for zebra (botia striata) or the polkadot (botia kubotai) or the golden zebra (botia histronica) loaches.

I have 14 juvinile loaches of the above in a 20gal as an short term home but I wouldn't recommend it long term.

My recommendation is to get 5-6 dwarf chain loaches (botia sidthimunki) for that size tank. These guys will eat smaller snaills which will leave the larger ones for you to squish and remove. Once they are happy you will find that no baby snails will ever be alive long enough to make it to breeding size and so you'll have no snail issues. Also, the dwarf chain loaches (sometimes called sids) are so much more outgoing and adventurous that any other of the medium sized loaches that I listed at the top.
 
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