zach_fresh
Aquarium Advice Regular
i read that clowns have retractable spines on the snout that they can use to sting other fish, does anyone know if this is true??
Satsumas said:Woah!! I love knowing fish can do this sort of thing.
I would love to have some clown loaches but my tank is too small for a school of them.
Jason the Lost said:I purchased my first loach Friday evening as I've developed a small snail outbreak from some plants I purchased. He as far as I can tell has not left this hollow resin driftwood piece with a cave entrance at the bottom. Do they always hide? I can't even spot him at night with the lunar led's on.
Snuffleupagus said:Jason the Lost said:I purchased my first loach Friday evening as I've developed a small snail outbreak from some plants I purchased. He as far as I can tell has not left this hollow resin driftwood piece with a cave entrance at the bottom. Do they always hide? I can't even spot him at night with the lunar led's on.
If you search, you ought to be able to find quite a few threads and articles here and elsewhere about clown loaches' behavior, but the short answer is that they tend te be fairly shy and nocturnal by nature. No matter what, they will pretty much be incredibly shy at first. With time, they often become more bold, but that depends on a lot -- some of the main things that will bring the clowns out more during the day and in general are:
1) Friends -- they're social fish, and one loach will usually be sad and hide all the time.
2) Enough hiding places so they feel secure venturing out, knowing they'll have somewhere to duck into should the need arise, even if they're on the other side of the tank.
3) Reasonably low light levels -- even though they're fairly active during the day compared to many loaches, they still aren't fond of bright lights glaring into their sensitive eyes.
4) Dither fish -- other active critters zipping about casually, to convince them there are no predators in the area.
Certainly there are other factors and enticements, but if you can manage those, you'll be much more likely to see them snuffling about and messing around.