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Every tank deserves a clown loach. Nice rich colors and a great
personality.
Origins: Clown loaches
come from the warm waters of Indonesia.
Indonesia
hosts many fish farms, however, many clown loaches are captured from the wild.
Nocturnal (sort of): Most
loaches are children of the night. They
like to prowl when the sun goes down.
Clown loaches are happy to work the day shift.
When you feed them, they eat. They prefer dimmer tanks.
Float some watersprite on the surface and your loaches will thank you.
Water Conditions: Although
they come from soft acid water originally, clown loaches adapt to most
water conditions. Just keep
their water clean.
LA
Even the 1.5-inch clown loaches catch your eye. Watch 'em dig for goodies.
LA
Mature clown loaches look so much better.
Appeal: You can’t beat
clown loach colors. Younguns start
out yellow with black bars trimmed with orange fins and tail.
As they grow, their bodies turn oranger and their black bars darken.
Their fins and tail turn a bright orange.
LA Pic
Clown loaches dig right in looking for goodies.
Snail Clean up Crew:
Clown loaches shuck snails nearly as fast as you toss them in their
tank. They totally eliminate
ALL snails. Apply waterproof lipstick and kiss your mystery snail
collection goodbye.
LA
Two three-inch newbee clown loaches -- in their tank about two hours. They'll
color up later.
Size: In
aquariums, you rarely see clown loaches larger than six inches.
Larger clowns color up much better than young ones. They grow 50 to 100% larger in the wild where they get more room
(and food).
LA
Clown loaches looking for food or just cavorting for fun?
LA
Clown loaches like each other. Their interactions in groups add to
their appeal.
LA
Of course, you don't need to run this many head of clown loaches to make
them happy.
LA
Maybe this many. They like to hang with each other.
LA
Thirty or so ought to do it. Seriously, groups of three work fine.
Schoolers: Clown loaches
love to school together. Don’t
stop with just one. Singles tend to pout.
The more the merrier. They
get along great with their own species – unlike many botias, which hate
each other and any other fish that looks like them.
LA
Clown loach eyeball knives can convince the largest cichlids to mess less
with loaches.
LA
The larger the loach, the larger the knives.
Mixers: They get along
well with most larger fishes. Those
little pop-up knives by their eyes keep other fishes from
pestering them more than once. These
switch-blade knives also protect their eyes as they plow thru their substrate in search of snacks.
LA
Pic
Clown loaches pretty much ignore other species. Skinny guys here.
Tank Mates: Gouramis,
goldfish, and larger barbs make good tank mates. You can also
mix your clown loaches with equal-sized non-violent American cichlids.
If you mix them with territorial cichlids, expect lots of fights.
Clown loaches tend to win those fights. The switchblade knives help.
Breeding: Clown loaches
do not breed in captivity.
LA Pix
Look for plump bellies and bright colors when picking your clown loaches.
Foods: Clown
loaches usually start out about half starved.
Plump their little bellies up with frozen brine shrimp or blood
worms. Give them some live
black worms, too. Clown
loaches eagerly eat flake foods after a week or so.
They seem to adapt quicker when kept in groups.
They eat better when they cavort and compete with each other.
LA
Swords and other fast swimmers can eat all your clown loach food, if you feed
short rations.
Gravel Choice: Good foods
seem to affect the colors of clown loaches more than the substrate color.
White or light colored substrates can make their tank lots brighter than
they prefer.
LA Pix
Clown loach on left has a tank full of watersprite to sort thru and snack on.
Plants: Add some grassy
plants such as vallisneria or sagittarius
to make your clown loaches feel more at home. Even
anacharis or plastic plants help. They like
to snack on live plants.
LA
Put an extra month or two on your clown loaches and they look better. They still
like caves.
Hiding Places: Give them
some caves to hide in. They
prefer to stay out of bright light during the day. They
need a hideout the most when they’re small.
Disease: Clown loaches catch ich
at the drop of a hat. Plan on it, whether you own a hat or not. Give them a half-strength
dose of ich cure when you take yours home. Any kind of stress puts
out the welcome mat for the neighborhood ich germs. When using any
medications, use them carefully. The
clown loaches’ sensitive skin makes them susceptible to most dye
treatments.
Filtration: Clown
loaches demand clean water. Do
not overfeed. And you cannot use
snails to clean up uneaten food.
LA
Add two or three clown loaches to your aquarium soon.
LA
At three inches clown loaches develop their best colors.
LA
Don't panic if your clown loach lays atop your aquaria for the fun of
it. They can be goofy.
LA
Here's a three-inch clown loach with not much color.
Color Bumpers: Well
fed clown develop very rich colors. We’ve had the guy above about
four days. He (and another new arrival) is in with a clutch of a
dozen or so slightly smaller clown loaches, so he’s not pale from loneliness.
He’s not skinny or in poor water. He just needs some carotenoids
in his diet to bring out his reds, oranges, and yellows.
Solution? Feed him some brine shrimp, plankton, baby shrimp, and/or
frozen bloodworms. He’ll color up over time.
LA
Two-inchers look like this.
LA
Four-inch clown loaches should look like this.
Last Word:
Clown loaches look good at any age. They improve as they
mature. You may run across a larger (and uglier) royal clown loach.
Not really a close relative but they do cost a royal bundle.
LA.
Jamie McIntosh, June 7, 2011
LA
Brace of 5-inch clown loaches.
A: Thanks for the report which starts out like this :
The following account is about an article that
is of interest, but must be treated with great
skepticism. The original article was illustrated
by excellent colour drawings, because the author
claimed that his photographs taken at the time
were unobtainable. This was due to being stored
in a garage to which access was blocked by a
large pile of earth and rubble.
Over 10 years later, these photographs have
never been published.
|
However, the report went on to mention that they have been
"injection spawned" in S.E. Asia and the Czech Republic. So,
you can just zip on over to Walgreen's and buy some of the carp
hormone and a set of hypodermic needles. Thanks. I'm
adding your info to my clown loach page. LA
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