New Clown Loach

On 29 Jul 2003 12:31:23 -0700, Sarah wrote:
I clean the gravel and change 20% of the water every week. The tanks
I have are only 5 gallons so I test the water parameters every 3-4

Hmm - 5 gallons isn't much room. I don't think I'd get another clown
(or three ideally) because they do get rather big.

Mine are little gluttons and have visibly grown in the few months
I've had them. I know they can live for many years and so they
won't *suddenly* be enormous, but if it was me I'd take advice
on putting a clown loach or three in a small tank.

--
Flash Wilson
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bother. Must not drink tequila before midnight on a weeknight.

Flash Wilson wrote:
Hmm - 5 gallons isn't much room. I don't think I'd get another clown
(or three ideally) because they do get rather big.

I agree. Don't get any clown loaches, they really shouldn't be in tanks
less than 55 gallons.



--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote in message
...
Flash Wilson wrote:
Hmm - 5 gallons isn't much room. I don't think I'd get another clown
(or three ideally) because they do get rather big.

I agree. Don't get any clown loaches, they really shouldn't be in tanks
less than 55 gallons.

....Just in the interest in adding under a topic of fish I have Ive got to
ring in with some support for not getting clowns in anything under a 55g,
unless your planning on upgrading within the next few months. Thankfully I
have three of them in a 29g, and had planned on upgrading eventually but its
going to be within the next month as these guys eat blood worms like their
going out to style and are growing like weeds,salute-Brian



--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv





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Hi Sarah,
Sorry for your loss. Best I can do is give you my story with Clown's.

We've wanted clown loaches ever since we bought our first 5g. After we
bought our 30g, we looked into clowns.

We brought our first ones home, they were in the tank for 5 minutes and were
covered in Ich. 14 days later, they were all dead, along with other fish in
the tank. The loaches had a strain of Ich resistant to almost every
treatment except acid. The LFS we got them from had their systems treated by
Hagen using acid, loosing hundreds of fish from this strain of Ich.

About a month later, they got another shipment of clowns in, and replaced
the loaches we lost. We introduced them into the tank and they got Ich
again, dying a couple days later. This time, it wasn't the bad strain, the
LFS was able to treat without loosing any, but being the clowns had a 1/2
drive, stressed out, then exposed to Ich meds, they couldn't hack it.

We brought home 3 more, we researched for hours how to bring them home
first.

We brought them home, floated them in the tank for an hour. Then we added 2
cups of tank water, and floated them for another 15 minutes. We then removed
some of the water and added another 2 cups of tank water, floated them for
15 minutes. Then gently netted them out of the bag into the tank. They never
got ich, didn't even loose any color. Acted like nothing was even wrong.
They're still alive to this day. They're in a tank now where theres a
problem with the water and I lost some large Balas, by looking at them, you
wouldn't know anything was wrong.

One key piece of advice we got is make sure you get the biggest clowns in
the tank, and with the most color. The ones that died on us were small.

As for growth, yeah, they get big, but not fast. I've now had mine for a
couple months and they've hardly grown (1/2" at most), maybe fattened up a
bit, but that's it. Any research I've done said that they take a while to
get big. A 5g however probably isn't the nicest home for a Clown as they
like their room to swim around. My little guys love the 90g they're in right
now, as I write this they're playing in the stream from the fluval. BTW,
they love schooling with Tiger Barbs, sometimes have trouble telling them
apart.

Cheers



"Sarah" wrote in message
om...
My new clown loach is dead. He was laying in a corner of the tank
this morning on his side but I could still see his gills moving. I
went home at lunchtime to check on him and found him dead. It looked
like he'd been dead a few hours.

I decided to take him and a water sample back to the LFS since it's
been less than 24 hours since I brought him home and put him in my
tank. The girl working at the counter was the same one that sold me
the fish yesterday so she was just going to give me a new fish without
testing the water. I insisted that she test it since I don't want to
kill another fish. pH was 7.2, ammonia 0, nitrite 0.

When I got to the counter the manager said that I should have taken a
water sample from the bottom of the tank (I took mine from the top 1/3
of the water column) and that she didn't think it was a good idea to
get another loach.

I clean the gravel and change 20% of the water every week. The tanks
I have are only 5 gallons so I test the water parameters every 3-4
days to make sure everything is fine. All my tanks are cycled. The
tank the loach was in only has one platy and 3 platy fry (I saw
another one this morning). Is there anything else I should be doing?
Should I be testing the water from the bottom of the tank, near the
gravel? Should I follow this woman's advice and not get another
loach? I don't want to kill another fishy.

Also, if I do get another loach would it be ok to add two fish at
once? Or should I wait a week or so in between adding fish to make
sure the tank doesn't cycle again?

Sarah

"Poe Lim" wrote in message
.au...
"NetMax" wrote in message
.. .

There really isn't any 'normal' representative behaviour of a fish
when
it has just been introduced to a new environment (other than acting
fearful). Loaches do lie on their sides sometimes, but I wouldn't
read
too much into it for now. It's probably anxious to find more of his
kind, as they are very social creatures which would not do
particularly
well alone. JMO

How long do they usually take to get use to the new environment? I've
just
introduced three into a tetra tank last weekend (to look after some
snails),
and they seem to be hiding a lot. Any suggestions as to getting them out
into the open?

Cheers,
Poe

"Sarah" wrote in message
om...
My new clown loach is dead. He was laying in a corner of the tank
this morning on his side but I could still see his gills moving. I
went home at lunchtime to check on him and found him dead. It looked
like he'd been dead a few hours.

Sorry you lost him.

I decided to take him and a water sample back to the LFS since it's
been less than 24 hours since I brought him home and put him in my
tank. The girl working at the counter was the same one that sold me
the fish yesterday so she was just going to give me a new fish without
testing the water. I insisted that she test it since I don't want to
kill another fish. pH was 7.2, ammonia 0, nitrite 0.

What temperature do you keep your aquarium at?

When I got to the counter the manager said that I should have taken a
water sample from the bottom of the tank (I took mine from the top 1/3
of the water column) and that she didn't think it was a good idea to
get another loach.

If there is no filtration, I believe ammonia floats, but if your ammonia
test was zero, I don't think it would be relevant. There is also less
oxygen at the bottom of a tank (when there is no or insufficient
circulation). This is more relevant to bottom feeders like the loach,
but shallow tanks with a light fish load are probably low risk for that.
I don't know of any other parameters which would 'layer' in still water,
and none that would not mix with proper circulation.

I clean the gravel and change 20% of the water every week. The tanks
I have are only 5 gallons so I test the water parameters every 3-4
days to make sure everything is fine. All my tanks are cycled. The
tank the loach was in only has one platy and 3 platy fry (I saw
another one this morning). Is there anything else I should be doing?
Should I be testing the water from the bottom of the tank, near the
gravel? Should I follow this woman's advice and not get another
loach? I don't want to kill another fishy.

Do you remove the gravel to clean it ? A cycled tank means that there is
a biological processing capability which matches the bio-load in the
tank. This is most easily done with a filter, but can also be achieved
by the bacterial coating of the various surfaces (ie: gravel), which
should not be cleaned often.

Another variable to consider is how much (if any) temperature variation
are you allowing? Small tanks typically use incandescent lighting which
is quite warm. In combination with daytime summer heat, could your tank
temperature be bouncing on a daily cycle. Sorry for all the questions.

Also, if I do get another loach would it be ok to add two fish at
once? Or should I wait a week or so in between adding fish to make
sure the tank doesn't cycle again?

Why do you want a loach? They are not very suitable for such a small
aquarium. There are other bottom feeders (ie: shrimps, snails) which
might be more suitable.

Regarding your fish stocking question, it would depend on how your
nitrifying bacteria are housed. If 'au natural', I would add gradually.
If a bio-wheel, I would add all at once (tripling your bio-capacity takes
less than 2 days). hth

NetMax

Sarah

"Poe Lim" wrote in message
.au...
"NetMax" wrote in message
.. .

There really isn't any 'normal' representative behaviour of a fish
when
it has just been introduced to a new environment (other than acting
fearful). Loaches do lie on their sides sometimes, but I wouldn't
read
too much into it for now. It's probably anxious to find more of
his
kind, as they are very social creatures which would not do
particularly
well alone. JMO

How long do they usually take to get use to the new environment? I've
just
introduced three into a tetra tank last weekend (to look after some
snails),
and they seem to be hiding a lot. Any suggestions as to getting them
out
into the open?

Cheers,
Poe

Don't beat yourself up about this loss. Clown loaches are
delicate when small (less than 3-4"). One of my LFS sells
tiny ones (1-1.5") and won't even give a 24-hour guarantee
on them (they give 7 days on the big ones).

Another thing to keep in mind is that these are wild-caught fish
(afaik no one is breeding them commercially). That means they
were in a stream somewhere a week or two ago and have since
been caught, transported to an exporter, packed for shipping,
flown halfway around the world, shipped to a fish wholesaler
and finally shipped to your LFS--it's a wonder ANY survive!

I think others have pointed out that clown loaches are a fish
which needs a school of at least three (six is really best) and
which has an adult size in excess of 10" is not a great choice
for a 5 gallon tank. Maybe a trio of pygmy cories instead?

-coelacanth

"Sarah" wrote in message
om...
My new clown loach is dead. He was laying in a corner of the tank
this morning on his side but I could still see his gills moving. I
went home at lunchtime to check on him and found him dead. It looked
like he'd been dead a few hours.

I decided to take him and a water sample back to the LFS since it's
been less than 24 hours since I brought him home and put him in my
tank. The girl working at the counter was the same one that sold me
the fish yesterday so she was just going to give me a new fish without
testing the water. I insisted that she test it since I don't want to
kill another fish. pH was 7.2, ammonia 0, nitrite 0.

When I got to the counter the manager said that I should have taken a
water sample from the bottom of the tank (I took mine from the top 1/3
of the water column) and that she didn't think it was a good idea to
get another loach.

I clean the gravel and change 20% of the water every week. The tanks
I have are only 5 gallons so I test the water parameters every 3-4
days to make sure everything is fine. All my tanks are cycled. The
tank the loach was in only has one platy and 3 platy fry (I saw
another one this morning). Is there anything else I should be doing?
Should I be testing the water from the bottom of the tank, near the
gravel? Should I follow this woman's advice and not get another
loach? I don't want to kill another fishy.

Also, if I do get another loach would it be ok to add two fish at
once? Or should I wait a week or so in between adding fish to make
sure the tank doesn't cycle again?

Sarah

"Poe Lim" wrote in message
.au...
"NetMax" wrote in message
.. .

There really isn't any 'normal' representative behaviour of a fish when
it has just been introduced to a new environment (other than acting
fearful). Loaches do lie on their sides sometimes, but I wouldn't read
too much into it for now. It's probably anxious to find more of his
kind, as they are very social creatures which would not do particularly
well alone. JMO

How long do they usually take to get use to the new environment? I've just
introduced three into a tetra tank last weekend (to look after some snails),
and they seem to be hiding a lot. Any suggestions as to getting them out
into the open?

Cheers,
Poe

"NetMax" wrote in message ...

What temperature do you keep your aquarium at?

Temperature varies slightly during the day but stays around 78 to 80.

Do you remove the gravel to clean it ? A cycled tank means that there is
a biological processing capability which matches the bio-load in the
tank. This is most easily done with a filter, but can also be achieved
by the bacterial coating of the various surfaces (ie: gravel), which
should not be cleaned often.

I don't remove the gravel to clean it. I generally vacuum up an area
or two where a lot of mulm has collected and get any larger pieces of
stuff that might be floating around. Most of the gravel and other
stuff remains pretty much untouched.

Another variable to consider is how much (if any) temperature variation
are you allowing? Small tanks typically use incandescent lighting which
is quite warm. In combination with daytime summer heat, could your tank
temperature be bouncing on a daily cycle. Sorry for all the questions.


When I first set up the tanks I noticed that the temperatures could
range anywhere from 74 to 80, but like I said before, things seemed to
have balanced themselves out. Heat isn't a concern because we have
central air running at all times and keep the apartment at around 76
degrees.

Why do you want a loach? They are not very suitable for such a small
aquarium. There are other bottom feeders (ie: shrimps, snails) which
might be more suitable.

I know I'm going to need more room with loaches. I'm going to be
getting a 30 or 40 gallon tank sometime in the next 2-3 months. I
wanted some because they're cute and fun to watch. I suppose I should
wait until I get the larger tank up and running before I get them
though. I'm hoping to make the larger tank a planted tank so it's
going to take me a month or so to get it up and running.

Regarding your fish stocking question, it would depend on how your
nitrifying bacteria are housed. If 'au natural', I would add gradually.
If a bio-wheel, I would add all at once (tripling your bio-capacity takes
less than 2 days). hth

NetMax

Thanks for all your help.

As for growth, yeah, they get big, but not fast. I've now had mine for a
couple months and they've hardly grown (1/2" at most), maybe fattened up a

We got our clowns about 8 months ago and they have all at least doubled in
size. The largest one went from about 1" to about 3-3.5". YMMV.


--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote in message
...
As for growth, yeah, they get big, but not fast. I've now had mine
for a
couple months and they've hardly grown (1/2" at most), maybe fattened
up a

We got our clowns about 8 months ago and they have all at least
doubled in
size. The largest one went from about 1" to about 3-3.5". YMMV.


--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv


Mine are 3 years old and they are about 5 1/2 inches and real fat.....I
guess in another 8 or 9 years they will be ready to spawn......

Au Contraire! Check out:
http://www.loaches.com/loachbreeding.html

-coelacanth

Unlikely. I've never seen any documented reports of clown loach spawning in
the home aquarium.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv