Jeff wrote:

I was going to put in 2 Clown Loaches but was told by Pet Smart I
couldnt do that because they are semi aggressive and would kill all the fish
in my Community Tank. The snails are on the glass, in the rocks, on the
plants (Live and artificial), they are everywhere.

Snails in the tank are actually a good thing, as they turn over the sand
and eat left-overs. However, if there are too many left-overs (i.e., if
you are overfeeding) they multyply and can get unsightly. Feeding less
is often the only measure required, but it takes a while until numbers
get down. If you don't want to wait, you can collect the snails by hand
and remove them. If crushed, they are readily eaten by many fishes.

Loaches are very social animals and should be kept in groups of at least
6 (although I have seen them showing typical behaviour also in a group
of 4). Clown loaches, which can grow up to abeut 30 cm (1 ft) thus
require a tank of 200 l (50 gal) or more. However, there are _Botia_
species which stay much smaller, eat snails and show behaviour similar
to clown loaches (_B. macracanthus_): _B. lohachatu_, _B. kubotai_ and
_B. striata_ all stay smaller than 12 cm (5"), so decent group sizes can
be achieved even in relatively small tanks. Especially _B. striata_
seems to have quite a few friends in this newsgroup.

I have never seen loaches kill other fish, although they may (like most
other fishes except the pure vegans) feed on cadavers.