Do Clown Loaches & Oscars make good tankmates?
- Thread starter Jacky12
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
I know everything about many subjects. The call me Ms. Know-It-All, a title I wear with great pride
I should know everything about fish in 5.25789 years.
And an FYI, I was with my buddy today who also has over 40 years in the business and close to 50 years in the hobby and he too has seen Clown loaches at last 9" -10 inches and one possibly 12". If you have 10-15 years, you too can grow yours that large if the tank is large enough and you feed the right foods.
I’m learning about their diverse diets, although I have no particular desire for gigantic fish of any species. I just don’t much like small species; I do have a 55 G & a nice corner 44 with guppies, endlers, tetras, platys, small gourami etc. I found a cichlid fry in the sump tank, most likely a Blue Dragon Peacock, & tossed him into the 55. He’s over 3” & plumping up. Very docile. Is it nature or nurturance? My tank demographics are shifting. The Pink 8” old Oscar is moving downstairs to the 75 G on my big stand built for 2 tanks. She will be the only fish there.
The 4 fantails & 2 dojo loaches presently in the 75 are going to the 125 goldfish tank. The upper 125 on the big stand is to be a Clown Fish only tank & have 8 CL of varying sizes: two 2”, three 3-4” coming from Imperial Tropicals in Florida, my favorite online fish seller. Plus the FB group of one each: 4, 5 & 6”. I am being told by numerous sources the larger CL will not eat the babies. So they will be removed from their current 40 G. I originally had 4 babies there, but returned two in favor of the larger trio in Florida.
The upper platform that has the soon to be 125 CL only tank is oversized & can probably accommodate a larger tank as is, but if not, can be modified. It’s not uncommon to see >125 tanks used around town at low prices. These are future plans that may or may not be executed. I’ll just have to see how it goes or how it grows.
EDIT: Just got FB message from guy with 40 years Clown Loach experience. He says he has never known a bigger one to eat a smaller one, including ones bigger and smaller than mine. I always love guys who say what I want to hear. But, seriously, I am able to read his previous posts & he sounds highly experienced and credible. There are many posting on FB and in forums who have owned fish for well under a year & I sure don’t take them at face value. There’s simply no substitution for decades of hands on experience. (Respect & gratitude to you: Andy & Colin & Aiken, Etc.)
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Colin_T
Aquarium Advice Addict
It's probably easier if you just build a fish room. Your MTS is totally out of control and I don't see it getting better any time soon.
You got that right. There’s plenty of room here, but it’s essential for me to keep the tanks in the 3 rooms i use. Can’t see the point of keeping them downstairs where I spend very little time. May have to replace the 125 tanks with bigger ones, but no room for additional tanks. Fortunately the husband overbuilds everything and the 4x4 posts under the existing tanks can support ten dancing elephants.
Colin_T
Aquarium Advice Addict
Build a fishroom and put a recliner chair in it with a coffee table and bar fridge. Problem solved
![IMG_9289[4985]bike.jpg](/data/attachments/279/279951-fef96220d4959b082921b14bb94c69d5.jpg)
![IMG_0115[4970]stand3.jpg](/data/attachments/279/279952-37ed72b5edc890f64806e4a81fd0638c.jpg)
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
Build a fishroom and put a recliner chair in it with a coffee table and bar fridge. Problem solved
I know I would change my routine to sit in front of all those tanks in one space. ( The dogs will too. )There is simply no alternative to relocate the tanks to one area, plus I’m very happy with the two 125 G in the kitchen & the 4 smaller ones in the adjacent sunroom which is also the dining area. This room, glass on 3 sides, overlooks the woods & a creek. The finished area of the basement would have been ideal for a fish room. It has a large central room with a big gas fireplace, a small kitchen & a bedroom & bathroom. But this area has long been spoken for. The husband has a pro quality gym there with every cadio machine & free weight lifting station one can imagine. He calls the bedroom the Carburetor Room & is forever rebuilding parts for his vintage cars.
Sitting near 8 tanks is enough for me & I observe the others often. My work from home job is very intense at times & I couldn’t possibly sit in a single room all day anyway.
Sitting near 8 tanks is enough for me & I observe the others often. My work from home job is very intense at times & I couldn’t possibly sit in a single room all day anyway.
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mjGomez, hope you read this. I came across an incredible size difference case in Clown Loaches from one of my new CL buddies. He bought two 2” CLs about 5 years ago. One never got past 3” and the other is 10”. Pretty amazing! Must be highly unusual.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
Not really. He most likely got tank raised loaches so there is little control over releasing runts or genetically inferior fish. "If it looks like a fish, it ships."
I'll bet the ages of the 2 fish were vastly different.If these were wild caught fish, most likely the runt would not have survived so never got onto the market. Sadly/gratfully, getting wild ones is not that common for the past 10-15 years or maybe longer. The use of hormones are used to get the breeders to want to breed. Once the mechanics of doing this was understood, it became ( and still is) real commonplace.
Colin_T
Aquarium Advice Addict
Size differences in fish can also be caused by intestinal worms, gill flukes, malnutrition, bullying, insufficient room for all the fish.
If the smaller fish had a few worms or gill flukes, then it won't grow as fast as fish without those parasites. If fish aren't growing, they should be dewormed and treated for gill flukes to make sure they are free of these parasites.
If there are only 2 loaches in the tank, the bigger one will bully/ intimidate the smaller one and slow or stunt its growth. Loaches are social fish and need decent sized groups to function normally. They have a pecking order with a dominant female ruling the group. If you have 2 females together, one usually grows big while the other stays small. Two loaches in a tank rarely work out as well as 6-10 loaches in the tank.
I have another explanation! (Although sure yours are correct too)
These fish had different baby daddies! It happened with my dogs. They were mutts from a litter of ten. The sizes varied tremendously. I took the largest black female who looked like a wolf & got to 110 pds. The owners kept the biggest male puppy who resembled a mastiff. They gave him to me a year later & his adult weight got to 140, way bigger than me. Others from the same litter never passed 40 pds.
The vet took one look at my pair & said they had different dads. I did DNA & sure enough their mom got around. The vet said this is not uncommon.
Does it happen in fish? I don’t see why not.
These fish had different baby daddies! It happened with my dogs. They were mutts from a litter of ten. The sizes varied tremendously. I took the largest black female who looked like a wolf & got to 110 pds. The owners kept the biggest male puppy who resembled a mastiff. They gave him to me a year later & his adult weight got to 140, way bigger than me. Others from the same litter never passed 40 pds.
The vet took one look at my pair & said they had different dads. I did DNA & sure enough their mom got around. The vet said this is not uncommon.
Does it happen in fish? I don’t see why not.
Colin_T
Aquarium Advice Addict
If the fish are bred in a fish farm, they might use one male to fertilise the eggs from a female, or they might use a number of males and females and mix their gametes up together.
If fish breed in the wild there might be several males breeding with each female or it might be one on one with no outsiders allowed (depending on the species). Clown loaches are group spawners and there might have been several males involved but you don't get oversized male or female loaches. Dogs have toy breeds that are 2kg and 8 inches high, and huge breeds that are 4 feet high and a whole lot of in between. There's nothing like that variation in a single species of fish.
Having two fish from the same batch grow to completely different sizes when grown in the same tank is unlikely unless there is some health issue. Clown loaches don't have a dwarf variety so that is unlikely to be the cause. A physical defect might be the cause but if both fish look normal shaped and swim normally, then that is unlikely too.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
While I agree with the majority of your analysis, there are a lot of possibilities that right now, we don't have enough info to determine which is correct. As for dwarfism, it happens in fish as well. I've yet to see a spawn of any fish that does not contain "runts". Whether you want to call it a natural phenomena or a genetic manipulation does not change it's existence. How long these runts survive depends on the breeder and how they care for the fish. Unfortunately, I've known breeders that will take these runts and accumulate them to sell off as just a " small" (vs a medium or large size) knowing full well that some of these fish may be years old when sold. Breeder integrity has a lot to do with what they sell. I can't say for the rest of the world but I do know that the majority of Clown Loaches sold in the U.S over the past decade or so come from a breeder in Florida. I do know that the company I worked for sent tank bred Clown loaches to our customers in Europe as well. Whether other sellers want to admit to this is an unknown.
My new clowns are coming from Imperial Tropicals in Florida, my favorite online seller. I have no idea what if anything, they breed. I have an email into them now offering to pay more than their asking price for 3-4” fish, if they can guarantee at least 4” or bigger. They have yet to respond, but I’m confident they will. Never hurts to ask. They are backlogged, stopped shipping entirely from 12/22/22 to 1/3/23 due to inclement weather & possible delays. They do overnight only & the fish generally arrive at my house around 10 AM. So I don’t expect to see these Clowns for a few weeks.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
They are not that far from me so not shipping during this recent cold snap was smart on their part.
It was freakin' COLD here I've always found that shipping fish between Christmas and New Years is a high risk endeavor. We actually stopped doing it after the first year of problems. It's a lot less aggravating that way. And PS, Happy New Year to everyone.
They’re not worried about the weather there. They’re worried about the weather here and worse weather elsewhere. We have been under blizzard warnings and dozens of people died about 100 miles away from us due to Elliot.
I think it will be really cool that the EV battery can be used as a generator and power much in the house, so I won’t have to worry about the fish if our power goes out. But the EV is on back order & has been since 8/22. Hopefully soon. The next red one up is ours.
I think it will be really cool that the EV battery can be used as a generator and power much in the house, so I won’t have to worry about the fish if our power goes out. But the EV is on back order & has been since 8/22. Hopefully soon. The next red one up is ours.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
I wasn't talking about just the weather here. It's usually beautiful here while horrible elsewhere. The issue you should be aware of here is that since it is not usual for freezing weather here, most places are not set up for that kind of weather. It's common for fish to get sick after a major cold snap or bad weather. We saw that routinely after typhoons in the Pacific or hurricanes in the Atlantic. The fish collected right after the storms often did terribly in our systems. I highly recommend you quarantine these new loaches for at least a few weeks to make sure they don't bring anything to your other loaches.
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