Amount of vegetation

20 gal tank with tetras, 2 black molly's, one orange molly, clown loaches,
few others and a large pleco.

I have 4 or 5 medium sized shells in there, one is used as a home by the
pleco.

I have one live plant which grows pretty wildly (long). I cant remember what
it is its been so long since i bought it. I have one artificial weed patch
(That flat thing they say is for fry to hide in).

I did have one longer plastic plant but took it out because it seemed to be
taking up too much room and the fish seemed like they were avoiding it and
tryting to swim around it.

How much vegetation should I have..generally? And what about shells and
places for fish to hide, etc.

Is it a bad idea to change the environment slightly to increase the area the
fish have to swim and move around?


TIA
Jeff

JeffinMS wrote:
20 gal tank with tetras, 2 black molly's, one orange molly, clown loaches,
few others and a large pleco.

I have 4 or 5 medium sized shells in there, one is used as a home by the
pleco.

I have one live plant which grows pretty wildly (long). I cant remember what
it is its been so long since i bought it. I have one artificial weed patch
(That flat thing they say is for fry to hide in).

I did have one longer plastic plant but took it out because it seemed to be
taking up too much room and the fish seemed like they were avoiding it and
tryting to swim around it.

I'm not much of a plastic plant person. With real plants, prey fish
like tetras will often hover at the edge of the plant or swim nearby.
They dart in if they feel threatened.

How much vegetation should I have..generally? And what about shells and
places for fish to hide, etc.

In your tank, maybe three medium sized plants as cover for the mollies
and tetras. Add a couple of piles of driftwood, rocks, or shells
arranged to make fish-sized caves or hiding places for the pleco and
loaches. Leave the spawning grass if you like babies, although they'll
have a hard time escaping the loaches.

You can add more cover, of course. Fish don't mind swimming through a
jungle of live plants and loaches love caves.

Is it a bad idea to change the environment slightly to increase the area the
fish have to swim and move around?

Community fish like yours don't seem to mind occasional redecoration.
You might stress the loaches if you did something silly like moved their
cave every day.

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"Altum" wrote in message
. com...


Community fish like yours don't seem to mind occasional redecoration. You
might stress the loaches if you did something silly like moved their cave
every day.



Well I am having a Loach problem now. I did a 50% water change, cut some
plants and removed the plastic vegetation. Now I seem to be missing a Clown
Loach! Ususally they are all together but one is missing. He didnt get
sucked through the tube cause hes way too big for that, he didnt get buried
from me moving rock, I double checked. He isnt hiding in any of the shells.
Totally gone. He also isnt in with the vegetation I threw out, for one hes
so big I would have noticed and I took a look, not there. How the heck do
you lose a fish?!

*NOTE: There are two Koi-Lo's on this NG*

"JeffinMS" wrote in message
...
Well I am having a Loach problem now. I did a 50% water change, cut some
plants and removed the plastic vegetation. Now I seem to be missing a
Clown Loach! Ususally they are all together but one is missing. He didnt
get sucked through the tube cause hes way too big for that, he didnt get
buried from me moving rock, I double checked. He isnt hiding in any of the
shells. Totally gone. He also isnt in with the vegetation I threw out, for
one hes so big I would have noticed and I took a look, not there. How the
heck do you lose a fish?!
=============================
He jumped out when you weren't looking? Fish do it all the time. Have you
checked the floor all around your tank? Under the furniture? Do you have a
cat or a dog?
--
Koi-Lo....
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö ~~~~ }((((({*

JeffinMS wrote:
"Altum" wrote in message
. com...


Community fish like yours don't seem to mind occasional redecoration. You
might stress the loaches if you did something silly like moved their cave
every day.




Well I am having a Loach problem now. I did a 50% water change, cut some
plants and removed the plastic vegetation. Now I seem to be missing a Clown
Loach! Ususally they are all together but one is missing. He didnt get
sucked through the tube cause hes way too big for that, he didnt get buried
from me moving rock, I double checked. He isnt hiding in any of the shells.
Totally gone. He also isnt in with the vegetation I threw out, for one hes
so big I would have noticed and I took a look, not there. How the heck do
you lose a fish?!


Sadly I totally lost 2 Clown Loaches this way in the past...no way they
could have jumped and even after moving the tank there was never any
evidence of this....we even stripped down the filter hunting for
them....with no luck....

I'm pretty sure they got munched by their tankmates....however, on a
positive note they are absolute b*ggers for hiding...I rarely see one of
my latest batch of 3 in QT but he is in there for sure.....plus someone
posted a few months ago about suddenly finding a very large, fat Clown
Loach they thought had died months before...I've lost CLs for days on
end and they suddenly turn up as if nothing has happened...

The only way you will know for sure is with a torch under the tank and
stripping out every single nook and cranny in your tank that he might be
hiding in/under....

Good luck...and I hope it turns out the best for you....and get hunting....

Gill

Gill Passman wrote: in answer to a question about clown loaches diappearing:
... I rarely see one of
my latest batch of 3 in QT but he is in there for sure.....plus someone
posted a few months ago about suddenly finding a very large, fat Clown
Loach they thought had died months before...I've lost CLs for days on
end and they suddenly turn up as if nothing has happened...

The only way you will know for sure is with a torch under the tank and
stripping out every single nook and cranny in your tank that he might be
hiding in/under....

Good luck...and I hope it turns out the best for you....and get hunting....

Gill

My 3 clown loaches always show up at meal times, but they like to hide
too. Often they're behind pieces of slate I've leaned agains the
aquarium back.

In my early aquarium keeping days I had a kuhli loach in a planted
aquarium with sand substrate. We rarely saw the kuhli loach, and several
times I was convinced that it had died. Actually, it would bury itself
in the sand so we couldn't see it. Once we figured that out, we could
sometimes find the kuhli loach's little face poking up out of the sand.

OT - NetDenizen ping



On Fri, 12 May 2006 17:31:28 -0400, netDenizen wrote:

Gill Passman wrote: in answer to a question about clown loaches diappearing:
... I rarely see one of
my latest batch of 3 in QT but he is in there for sure.....plus someone
posted a few months ago about suddenly finding a very large, fat Clown
Loach they thought had died months before...I've lost CLs for days on
end and they suddenly turn up as if nothing has happened...

The only way you will know for sure is with a torch under the tank and
stripping out every single nook and cranny in your tank that he might be
hiding in/under....

Good luck...and I hope it turns out the best for you....and get hunting....

Gill

My 3 clown loaches always show up at meal times, but they like to hide
too. Often they're behind pieces of slate I've leaned agains the
aquarium back.

In my early aquarium keeping days I had a kuhli loach in a planted
aquarium with sand substrate. We rarely saw the kuhli loach, and several
times I was convinced that it had died. Actually, it would bury itself
in the sand so we couldn't see it. Once we figured that out, we could
sometimes find the kuhli loach's little face poking up out of the sand.
-- Mister Gardener
-- Pull the WEED to email me