Clown Loaches (Not acting normally?)

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 04:08:50 GMT, "Fishman" wrote:

1 fish per gallon of water?!

I don't know who told you that, but I wouldn't take it. What kind of fish?
1 adult Oscar in 1 gallon of water? What about an Arawana, Bala Shark?
Tetra's may be a different story, but still...

Fishman

I imagine he meant 1 fish-inch per gallon. I have exceeded this
measure with no problems. Frequent partial water changes over come
many problems in my opinion.

dick

"Jeff" wrote in message
. ..

"Billy" wrote in message
. ..
I will toss in my 2 pennies in agreement with the others. Give the fish a
few days to become accustomed to the tank before you worry about them
behaviorally. Also, since clowns eventually reach a foot long or more,
your
20 gal tank is no more than a temporary home, and with the other fish in
that tank, it's already pretty overstocked in my opinion. Test your water
frequently and watch for trouble.

billy

I definitly agree it looks overstocked. But on one of my previous
posts/questions I was told 1 fish per gallon of water. I figured the Neon
Tetras being so small wouldnt be a problem. I already knew about the
Loaches, temporary. It was suggested in this group that I put the loaches
in
the tank, let them clean up the snails and possibly the fish store would
buy
them back or I could sell them.

Dick, I also am curiuos about this. I have three clown loaches in a 100
gallon tank, along with a few miscellanous other fish. They are only about
4 or 5 inches long also. I have had them about a year and a half and they
just don't seem to grow any larger. I was told when I got them that they
needed to be in a very large tank because they would get very big, but it's
just not happening yet.

Sarah

Marco, I am curious about the attitude that Clowns need more space.
Perhaps size is part of the reason. None of my Clowns have grown much
more than 5 inches. The 2 in my 10 gallon tank seem no different than
the 6 in my 75 gallon tank, similar size, color and behavior. These
Clowns have been in their respective tanks about 2 1/2 years.

Do you have any personal experience which causes your caution about
smaller tanks?

dick

My Clowns are only 4" long and I've had them for 2 years in a 70g.
Either they are not eating well enough or my water is too hard, and I
should look around to find someone who will take them from me. Generally
they can be slow growing, especially at certain sizes, but I've found
their growth rates are very much affected by water quality and diet.

I think the issue with sizing the tank to the fish is two-fold. Many
people only have one tank, so they need to be warned about the eventual
size of the fish, to be sure they are prepared to adequately accommodate
them. Others like myself & Dick have many tanks, so we can simply rotate
them through increasingly larger tanks as required, or not, if not
needed.

The other issue is that tank size will affect their growth rate, or more
particularly, water quality (which is poorer in small tanks) may stunt
the fish. If moving the fish through tank upgrades, you need to be
slightly ahead of their requirements to not stunt their growth (imo).

A few more issues particular to botia a
- they are shoaling fish, so you need many of them.
- they are bottom dwellers, reducing their useable space to the square
footage of the bottom.
- they can be light sensitive and burrow for shelter and darkness,
further reducing their usable habitat.
Each of these points, should influence us to providing larger habitats.
jmo
--
www.NetMax.tk

"Sarah Navarro" wrote in message
nk.net...
Dick, I also am curiuos about this. I have three clown loaches in a
100 gallon tank, along with a few miscellanous other fish. They are
only about 4 or 5 inches long also. I have had them about a year and a
half and they just don't seem to grow any larger. I was told when I
got them that they needed to be in a very large tank because they would
get very big, but it's just not happening yet.

Sarah

Marco, I am curious about the attitude that Clowns need more space.
Perhaps size is part of the reason. None of my Clowns have grown much
more than 5 inches. The 2 in my 10 gallon tank seem no different than
the 6 in my 75 gallon tank, similar size, color and behavior. These
Clowns have been in their respective tanks about 2 1/2 years.

Do you have any personal experience which causes your caution about
smaller tanks?

dick

"Dan Abel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Jeff" wrote:


I definitly agree it looks overstocked. But on one of my previous
posts/questions I was told 1 fish per gallon of water. I figured the
Neon

No, that's one *inch* of fish per gallon of water.

Tetras being so small wouldnt be a problem.

Correct, because they are only about an inch anyway.

--

Ive got about 35 inches of fish in a 20 gallon tank.

"JeffinMississippi" wrote in message
...

"Dan Abel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Jeff" wrote:


I definitly agree it looks overstocked. But on one of my previous
posts/questions I was told 1 fish per gallon of water. I figured the
Neon

No, that's one *inch* of fish per gallon of water.

Tetras being so small wouldnt be a problem.

Correct, because they are only about an inch anyway.

--

Ive got about 35 inches of fish in a 20 gallon tank.


There are many ways to calculate fish-load. The fish-inch-gallon is a
guideline which works very poorly at the extremes of high mass (Oscars)
and low mass (Neon tetra).
http://www.2cah.com/netmax/basics/st...stocking.shtml

When in doubt, filter according to your fish-load and not your tank size.
If you think you should have a 40g tank, then you should be filtering
your 20g as at least a 40g (generally 25% larger), but as your tank is
small, you want lower turbulence filters (ie: a small Eheim canister
filter to augment what you already have).
--
www.NetMax.tk

Hi..

[...Clown Loaches...]
Do you have any personal experience which causes your
caution about smaller tanks?

First contact: ~37 years ago. A few years later I started
keeping a group for some years in my at that time biggest
tank 140/40/40cm (~55/15/15"). These days I thaught their
maximal size were 13-15cm (~5-6"). Mine were finally 16+
cm (~7") when I read they grow up to 30cm (~ 12"). So I gave
them to a fish keeper who had a 2000 liter tank (~530g)
with some 7 years old Clowns of about 25cm (~10"). There
mine grew up to 21cm (~8"), but his Clowns up to 27cm
(~11"). It was too late for mine to reach a normal
(healthy) size. ;-(

Now I agree to keepers which demand a minimal tank of 150cm
(~60") or 500 liter (~132g) for a group of them.

That experience made me thoughtful so I stopped keeping
fish like Clowns and Goldfish.

We use a word named "Verbutterung". I don't know how to
translate. It describes what happens if fish is forced to
live in much to small tank: it will stay small(er), will be
less healthier and will get morphological and physiological
problems..

--
cu
Marco

NetMax wrote:
My Clowns are only 4" long and I've had them for 2 years in a 70g.
Either they are not eating well enough or my water is too hard, and I
should look around to find someone who will take them from me. Generally
they can be slow growing, especially at certain sizes, but I've found
their growth rates are very much affected by water quality and diet.

I think the issue with sizing the tank to the fish is two-fold. Many
people only have one tank, so they need to be warned about the eventual
size of the fish, to be sure they are prepared to adequately accommodate
them. Others like myself & Dick have many tanks, so we can simply rotate
them through increasingly larger tanks as required, or not, if not
needed.

The other issue is that tank size will affect their growth rate, or more
particularly, water quality (which is poorer in small tanks) may stunt
the fish. If moving the fish through tank upgrades, you need to be
slightly ahead of their requirements to not stunt their growth (imo).

A few more issues particular to botia a
- they are shoaling fish, so you need many of them.
- they are bottom dwellers, reducing their useable space to the square
footage of the bottom.
- they can be light sensitive and burrow for shelter and darkness,
further reducing their usable habitat.
Each of these points, should influence us to providing larger habitats.
jmo
At one of my LFS they have a cl loach for sail that is about 8" in size,
appently the fish is about 15y old.

"Marco Schwarz" wrote in message
...
We use a word named "Verbutterung". I don't know how to
translate. It describes what happens if fish is forced to
live in much to small tank: it will stay small(er), will be
less healthier and will get morphological and physiological
problems..
=================
I think we would call that "stunted."
--

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
NEW PAGE: Aquariums:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shastada...ium-Page4.html
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shastadaisy
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

Hi Netmax,

I do have several tanks, but as I gain experience I am more and more
hesitant about moving my fish between tanks. I have seen "sick" fish
recover in their community tanks.

As to other's comment about "stunted" Clowns, this sounds negative as
I associated stunted with sickness. All of my Clowns healthy and
active. If they are stunted, so much the better. After I got my
Clowns I read the posts warning about potential size. That was over 2
years ago. It has been over a year since I have noticed any new
growth. I will be quite happy if they remain at their current sizes.

dick

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 10:56:12 -0500, "NetMax"
wrote:

My Clowns are only 4" long and I've had them for 2 years in a 70g.
Either they are not eating well enough or my water is too hard, and I
should look around to find someone who will take them from me. Generally
they can be slow growing, especially at certain sizes, but I've found
their growth rates are very much affected by water quality and diet.

I think the issue with sizing the tank to the fish is two-fold. Many
people only have one tank, so they need to be warned about the eventual
size of the fish, to be sure they are prepared to adequately accommodate
them. Others like myself & Dick have many tanks, so we can simply rotate
them through increasingly larger tanks as required, or not, if not
needed.

The other issue is that tank size will affect their growth rate, or more
particularly, water quality (which is poorer in small tanks) may stunt
the fish. If moving the fish through tank upgrades, you need to be
slightly ahead of their requirements to not stunt their growth (imo).

A few more issues particular to botia a
- they are shoaling fish, so you need many of them.
- they are bottom dwellers, reducing their useable space to the square
footage of the bottom.
- they can be light sensitive and burrow for shelter and darkness,
further reducing their usable habitat.
Each of these points, should influence us to providing larger habitats.
jmo

'Stunted' tends to have a negative connotation, and if it's due to bad
conditions, then it's deserved. It's interesting to note that stunted
fish (I call them runts) are also naturally occurring. I think this is
part of their evolutionary strategy of constant diversification through
mutation. Non-natural runts (stunted by environment rather than
genetics) can occur from a variety of reasons. The most predominant
would appear to be diet (ie: feeding only a flake food), but it was
explained to me that water parameter dilution also plays a major part,
especially with certain species.

The explanation was as follows: A growing fish will release hormones
which it can then detect back from the water.

If the hormones are not detectable or very low, then the body of water is
large and/or there is no or little competition from similar species, so
the proper action would be to expend more energy on growth (until some
other constraint develops, such as genetics, food supply etc).

If the hormones detected back are high, then the body of water is small
(or shrinking), or there is significant competition from similar species
(both indicating a reduced food supply), so a proper action might be to
not expand energy on growth, and stay small (surviving on less food).

If this analysis is correct (and I suspect that there is significant
truth behind it), then it would go a long way to explaining why total
sizes for fish are so different from an aquarium (where these hormones
are in high concentration) and from nature.

Loaches in particular are mostly from the Mekong river system fed from
mountain ranges (refreshed from heavy rainfall and snowmelt), so their
reaction (stunting) to accumulated elements in an aquarium (nitrates,
hormones etc) might be much more acute than lake fish, such as African
mbuna, which do approach and even exceed their natural size in nature.
--
www.NetMax.tk

"Dick" wrote in message
...
Hi Netmax,

I do have several tanks, but as I gain experience I am more and more
hesitant about moving my fish between tanks. I have seen "sick" fish
recover in their community tanks.

As to other's comment about "stunted" Clowns, this sounds negative as
I associated stunted with sickness. All of my Clowns healthy and
active. If they are stunted, so much the better. After I got my
Clowns I read the posts warning about potential size. That was over 2
years ago. It has been over a year since I have noticed any new
growth. I will be quite happy if they remain at their current sizes.

dick

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 10:56:12 -0500, "NetMax"
wrote:

My Clowns are only 4" long and I've had them for 2 years in a 70g.
Either they are not eating well enough or my water is too hard, and I
should look around to find someone who will take them from me.
Generally
they can be slow growing, especially at certain sizes, but I've found
their growth rates are very much affected by water quality and diet.

I think the issue with sizing the tank to the fish is two-fold. Many
people only have one tank, so they need to be warned about the eventual
size of the fish, to be sure they are prepared to adequately
accommodate
them. Others like myself & Dick have many tanks, so we can simply
rotate
them through increasingly larger tanks as required, or not, if not
needed.

The other issue is that tank size will affect their growth rate, or
more
particularly, water quality (which is poorer in small tanks) may stunt
the fish. If moving the fish through tank upgrades, you need to be
slightly ahead of their requirements to not stunt their growth (imo).

A few more issues particular to botia a
- they are shoaling fish, so you need many of them.
- they are bottom dwellers, reducing their useable space to the square
footage of the bottom.
- they can be light sensitive and burrow for shelter and darkness,
further reducing their usable habitat.
Each of these points, should influence us to providing larger habitats.
jmo