problems with clown loaches

nano55

nano55

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May 14, 2007
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It seems no matter what I do, I don't seem to have any luck with clown loaches. My tanks are clean;I do weekly water changes and vacume the gravel. I have plenty of hiding places for them, I feed them flake and pelleted foods for bottom feeders, and offer lettuce every other day. I also feed my fish frozen brine shrimp every couple of days. I keep the temperature at 80 degrees. I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. The fish that I have with them are not picking on them either. They just up and die. I had three of them in a 100 gal tank and they are all gone. I would like to try again, but am afraid of the same thing happening. Any advice or ideas what went wrong?
:help::wall:
 
What are the tankmates and what size are they?
 
Another thing to keep in mind is disease. Scaleless fish like clown loaches should be kept in a quarentine tank for about a month before you put them in the main tank. Gives em time to recover from their transport, and lets you keep a close eye on them for ich, fungus, wasting disease etc. I've never bought a clown loach that did'nt come with ich. But the month of Q and treatment and feeding ususally bulks them right back up, and by the time they go in the main tank, they are robust and hale little fish.
 
nano55 said:
I feed them flake and pelleted foods for bottom feeders, and offer lettuce every other day. I also feed my fish frozen brine shrimp every couple of days.
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Sounds like a diet issue to me. First off clown loaches are predominantly carnivores, so you can stop feeding them the lettuce. Second is flake food is not good way to feed your clown loaches as they prefer to feed from the bottom of the tank.Third is I am not sure what you mean by "pelleted foods for bottom feeders", are referring to algae tabs? I also would like to know how often, how much, and when you were feeding?

Here are my suggestions for feeding you loaches:

Feed your loaches when the tank lights are off as they will feel more comfortable and will be more likely to eat all that you feed them. I like to feed mine at night before I go to bed and in the morning before I go to work. For their main diet try using Hikari sinking wafers, Omega One shrimp pellets, frozen brine shrimp, frozen bloodworns, and when they get bigger frozen prawns. You can feed fruit or veggies as a treat every so often, but this should not be part of their main diet.
 
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Hi! As far as the water condition goes, I just bought a water testing kit and will test the water, but unfortunately, I don't know the quality of the water when the the clown loaches were in there. I would tend to think it was ok, as the tanks are cleaned every week, and I have 3 filters going for that tank.The food that I was feeding them were bottom feeders shrimp pellets and flakes (New Life Spectrum optimum H2O flakes.). The lettuce was for the fish that I keep along with the loaches. The loaches would sometimes eat the lettuce, but prefered the shrimp pellets and the flakes. In that tank, I kept some small peacocks and brichardis. I have never seen any aggresion towards the loaches. The largest clown loach was the most social,out most of the time, and always looking for food. I fed them 2 -3 times a day.
 
buy a length of PVC pipe taller than your tank from inside bottom to top. place a 90 elbow on one end. Place the 90 on the bottom of the tank with the other end sticking out the top of your tank. Ensure the pvc is large enough for the clowns to enter but keeps the larger fish out... drop a couple of bloodworm cubes, or brine shrimp or shredded cocktail shrimp in the exposed end. I also add a couple of drops of garlic extract. as the cubes thaw they sink to the bottom after a while the loaches will recongize when it's dinner time..ensures they get the food and not the other fishes or filters. Do this before you go to bed at night ensure its dark. Then in the morning remove the tube ensuring all the loaches are out of the tube. Good luck I keep about 15 c loaches ranging from 2" to 10" nice and fat in my different tanks
 
along with the diet issue that H3D has mentioned, it could also be that there are not enough members in the group. clown loaches appreciate being in groups, but at the same time, they can be nippy with one another if the group is to snmall. at least 6 is pretty the best number to start at. otherwise, the smallest one will get harassed by the two biggest ones, and then the biggest of those two will harass the remaining one. three is not really enough to build up a decent pecking order that will allow for the aggression to be distributed better.
 
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