Clown Loaches are hard to keep?

Question

thanks to everyone who answered my questions with an appropriate answer,
im running out of questions but still curious about this : they have "blades" under their eyes... how can anything deal with this? (tank mates plus the net when it comes to cleaning)

Things ive learned:
-like live food
-weak against ich and medications reduce amount of medicine needed by half.
-makes clicking sounds when they like something
-diet: brine shrimp, ripe bannanas, scalded lettuce, peas, blood worms, tubiflex worms
-adding heat to the tank reduces chance of diseases and reduces O2, (therefore i use a bubble stone)
-weak against dirty water (25% of water should be changed every week)
-sharp objects should be removed

some stuff that i learned
if theyres anything else missing please tell me! (and answer my question xD)

thanks!

Answer 1

I wouldn't call them hard to keep personally. Just exercise proper tank maintenance and that's the majority of the battle, like with any other fish.

Clowns only use their spines on very rare occassion, they raren't really a concern for tankmates unless the tank mates are trying to eat the clown. The spines are far too short to be used as a offensive weapon, they are purely defensive. You shouldn't have a problem at maintenance time with them either because you shouldn't be netting your fish then. Fish should only be netted when you are moving them to a new tank or a treatment tank basically. Never a need to net for routine water changes.

I would leave the bananas out of their diet personally. In fact, you will find they will do very well in a diet of quality sinking pellets with the occasional bloodworms, blackworm and brine shrimp as well as the occasional green veggie meal. Mine have for years and years.

Increased heat in a tank does not decrease the chance of disease in most cases. Heat over 70 helps prevent some few diseases, such as caudal penduncle disease and a few bacterial infections caused by aremonas and the like, but the fact is the majority of diseases do better in higher temperatures, within limits of course. One of the notable exceptions is ich, which is severely damaged by temperatures over 85F and killed by temperatures over 88F

Speaking of disease and treatments, clowns are only weak against certain medications, usually ich and other parasite medications. They can tolorate most antibiotics quite well. But that said, if you carefully quarantine any new fish before adding them to the tank you will have no problems with 99% of diseases. I have had ich in quarantine tanks, but haven't had it elsewhere in my tank room in many years, because I quarantine. Who cares if they are sensitive if you don't have to ever treat for ich.

Just keep the tank clean, feed a reasonable diet and you won't have problems with Clown Loaches.

MM

Answer 2

I enjoyed keeping my clown loaches; they were very playful. They were not any harder to keep than other tropical fish, but I was told the 'adjustment time' to the tank was more critical than with other fish. I guess this means they were more likely to die off within the first few days of being introduced. Personally, I've never had any problems. Sounds like you're off to a good start.

I had success feeding sinking pellets and disks, with an occasional treat of blanched veggies; the other live foods can introduce disease to the tank and aren't necessary.

As other with the other posts, they can get large, should be schooled with other clown loaches, and require a large tank. Good luck.

Answer 3

The blades are sharp but only stick out when the clown is out of the water, under a great deal of stress or under attack. You don't mention if you've learned that they grow up to 15", need to be kept in groups to minimize stress and bring out their natural tendencies and require a minimum tank size of 75 gallons.

Answer 4

Sorry i dont know if there hard to keep but they are a schooling fish and require LAGRE tanks!]

Heres a useful site :
http://www.loaches.com/species-index/clown-loach-chromobotia-macracanthus