Do Clown Loaches & Oscars make good tankmates?

[Jacky12]

I found three 4-6" clowns in a local group & will be picking them up Monday. I plan to return the pair of sevs from this 125 G tank, which will leave my eight yr old pink Oscar as the sole occupant. I've observed minor aggression between the female sev & the Oscar. Besides their old 125 G with 6 small sevs looks empty without them.


The C Loaches currently live with 4 Oscars & a fish visible in the photo. anyone know what kind of fish that is? I am seeing from internet searches Oscars and Clowns are quite compatible. Do you guys agree?

 

[Andy Sager]

I found three 4-6" clowns in a local group & will be picking them up Monday. I plan to return the pair of sevs from this 125 G tank, which will leave my eight yr old pink Oscar as the sole occupant. I've observed minor aggression between the female sev & the Oscar. Besides their old 125 G with 6 small sevs looks empty without them.


The C Loaches currently live with 4 Oscars & a fish visible in the photo. anyone know what kind of fish that is? I am seeing from internet searches Oscars and Clowns are quite compatible. Do you guys agree?

As long as the loaches can't fit in the Oscar's mouth they should be okay. That said, just because they are living with those Oscars does not mean they will live with yours. You don't know the back story on how long they have been together.
The other fish in the picture is a plecostomus.

 

[Jacky12]

The seller told me it was a plexiglass fish. I figured he meant pleco. Easy mistake to make. (Wink Wink). I have interrogated the seller & do indeed know much background. We spent hours messaging back & forth on the fish and vintage Chevys.

 

[Andy Sager]

The seller told me it was a plexiglass fish. I figured he meant pleco. Easy mistake to make. (Wink Wink). I have interrogated the seller & do indeed know much background. We spent hours messaging back & forth on the fish and vintage Chevys.

So, did the Oscars grow up with the loaches or where they put in after the Oscars had grown?

 

[Colin_T]

The big issue when keeping loaches and Oscars (or other big cichlids) is the loaches need somewhere to hide during the day. Oscars and most other cichlids dig and can dig under rocks causing them to fall and trap or squash any fish under it. You need to provide the loaches with some decent cover so they can hide during the day, and use something the Oscar can't cause problems if it digs under the cave/ cover. Pvc pipe and flower pots on their side are some of the safer options.

And as mentioned, the other fish is a common pleco (Hypostomus plecostomus. They grow to about 2ft long but normally get to 12-18inches in an aquarium.

 

[Jacky12]

Good to know, Colin. Thanks. I have several terra cotta pots here as well as PCV of varying diameters. But I have never seen this old girl Oscar dig. The few rocks in the tank are too big for her to push around. I will def provide much shelter for the clown loaches. My cold water dojos with the fantail goldfish like hides.

I read today it’s difficult to meet the oxygen requirements of the common pleco in an aquarium & they don’t get any larger than you say. I have no interest in this pleco. He’s drab. Maybe if he were purple or hot pink. I’m doing a black substrate with a black background in the tank & he’d just blend into the woodwork and poop a lot.

 

[Jacky12]

Andy, they grew up together, so this guy says.

Today someone in a Facebook group said her 4” Oscar tried to eat her 3” clown loach. Does this sound credible to you? It surprised me. The loach died while she was trying to pull it from the Oscar’s mouth.

I have some concerns the C loaches aren’t the 4-6” this guys says because the previous owner of the pink Oscar said she was a foot long & she’s only 8”. The C loaches are going into a 56 gallon QT, so I guess I’ll have to grow them out if they’re on the puny side. Do you happen to know how quickly they grow?

 

[Andy Sager]

Andy, they grew up together, so this guy says.

Today someone in a Facebook group said her 4” Oscar tried to eat her 3” clown loach. Does this sound credible to you? It surprised me. The loach died while she was trying to pull it from the Oscar’s mouth.

I have some concerns the C loaches aren’t the 4-6” this guys says because the previous owner of the pink Oscar said she was a foot long & she’s only 8”. The C loaches are going into a 56 gallon QT, so I guess I’ll have to grow them out if they’re on the puny side. Do you happen to know how quickly they grow?

I had a feeling. This in no way guarantees that YOUR Oscar won't try to eat them.
As for the loaches, they tend to be quick growers when small but slow growers once they are past the " juvenile" stage. They get to over 12" long but to get one that size might take 8-10 years or longer.
As for good hiding places, Different diameter PVC pipe ( 2", 3", 4" ) are great hiding places because the larger Oscars can't get inside them. You just want to use an appropriate size for the size of the loaches. You want to stay away from decor that can topple and trap the loaches underneath ( as Colin stated.) Oscars may move the pipes around even with the loaches inside them but no harm would come to the loaches from this.
As for the pleco, in spite of how large they get, they will come to the surface for air so the low oxygenation in the tank bit is a little off. We see them surfacing in the canals in Fl all the time. What is hard to be met in aquariums is water quality and food for these beasts. They require a lot of food and A LOT of poop removal.

 

[Jacky12]

Andy, There are few guarantees in LIG (life in general) only probabilities, some high, some low & some in between. The probability is high these loaches will do great with my Pink Lady.

BTW, thanks for the referral to Micheal’s Fish Room. The group owner is a hoot & we’re having lots of fun. There’s some pro quality fish photography going on there & it’s inspired me to resume my efforts to increase my sub minus zero skills & stop taking pics on this old iPad & learn to use a digital SLR. Then you’ll see how magnificent Pink Lady & these Clown Loaches truly are & some of my other 200+ fish.:

 

[Colin_T]

Digital SLR camera
Shutter speed 1/200
Aperture on auto
Flash on
ISO 100

Stand a few feet back from the tank.
Use Manual focus and follow the fish.
Angle the camera downwards a bit so you photograph the fish from slightly above and from the front (head) of the fish.
Have space around the fish in the picture. You can crop pictures down so the fish fills the screen but you can't add a tail

Clean the glass (inside & outside) about 30-60 minutes before taking pictures. This gets rid of dry water droplets on the glass that reflect the light from the camera flash and show up as horrible white patches on the picture.

Do a big water change and gravel clean, and clean the filter the day before taking pictures. Nothing spoils a picture more than algae blotches on the glass, yellow water and dirty substrate.

Practice, practice, practice.

Remember, it's a digital camera so take hundreds of pics and check them on your computer. Delete the rubbish and take more. Most of the really good photographers might print 1-2% of the pictures they take. The rest are archived or deleted.

 

[Jacky12]

Excellent post, Colin. Thanks so much. I’m taking a SS & saving it, so much easier to navigate my photo files than this site.

 

[Andy Sager]

Andy, There are few guarantees in LIG (life in general) only probabilities, some high, some low & some in between. The probability is high these loaches will do great with my Pink Lady.

Guess we'll find out together.

 

[Jacky12]

Got that right! First thing I need to know is the actual size of these loaches.

Do you find that person’s story credible of a 4” Oscar attempting to eat a 3” C loach & how the loach died during extraction? I’m wondering if she had some other loach species that may have resembled a fat worm. I’ve seen people make similar mistakes. The best one was about the axotles who climbed out of the water everyday to sun bathe on a big flat rock.

 

[Andy Sager]

Got that right! First thing I need to know is the actual size of these loaches.

Do you find that person’s story credible of a 4” Oscar attempting to eat a 3” C loach & how the loach died during extraction? I’m wondering if she had some other loach species that may have resembled a fat worm. I’ve seen people make similar mistakes. The best one was about the axotles who climbed out of the water everyday to sun bathe on a big flat rock.

Anything is possible. Also, people don't always measure their fish so accurately so I just say " Oh Wow" to those kinds of stories and move on.
I had a large female Guppy get eaten by a Medium Large Angelfish. The guppy barely fit in her mouth ( but it fit enough) so had I not extracted the fish, the Angel most likely would have died. If it will fit in it's mouth, an Oscar will try to eat it. Fish will take large prey and slowly swallow it so you see it hanging from their mouth for a while. This is why I said that when they grow up together, there is less chance of the Oscar eating the loaches. When it's just a new thing, it's about mouth sizes. Don't forget, Clown Loaches have those spines behind their eyes that can do some damage to a fish trying to eat them. Clown loaches are also more fragile so the attempted extraction could have been too much for the CL to handle and died from the shock.

 

[Jacky12]

Oh wow!

 

[Andy Sager]

Oh wow!

When you handle a lot of fish for a long period of time, you see a lot of things that just make you go and

 

[Jacky12]

Of that I’m sure. You would not believe how crowded some people keep their tanks. Today I saw a guy in Facebook who had 4 Oscar’s, 2 Jack Demseys, and several others with unfamiliar names. All big cichlids. Musta been 15-20 in a 125 G. I think most tank tragedies stem from overpopulating, inadequate filtration & unclean water.

 

[Andy Sager]

Of that I’m sure. You would not believe how crowded some people keep their tanks. Today I saw a guy in Facebook who had 4 Oscar’s, 2 Jack Demseys, and several others with unfamiliar names. All big cichlids. Musta been 15-20 in a 125 G. I think most tank tragedies stem from overpopulating, inadequate filtration & unclean water.

All depends on how small/large the fish are at the moment. Doubtful that fully grown there will be peace in the tank but if filtered correctly, clean water can postpone the inevitible.

 

[Jacky12]

 

[Jacky12]

The Oscar FB Group has spoken with a resounding yes from 20+ people and a sad questionable story from one person. There are good Oscar FB groups & some not so good. I finally found a very good one with many experienced Oscar owners.