Loaches Online Forum

this is what one side of the new clown looks like
the other side looks like this


what causes the odd patterns??? are there any tips on helping to improve his color??? he's tiny only about 1.5" and the other clowns think he's a little odd... they play with him, but they know he's "different"

Uhhhh.... Both those photos show the left side of the clown, no? Martin has collected studious notes on variations in clown markings. Consider yourself lucky to find an oddball.

At that size, with decades of life ahead of them, clowns will colour up own their own. Keep some high-carotene food in their diet, like brineshrimp, and you'll see a healthy orange colour in a couple of months.

the photos are NOT of the clown, the clown i have is very shy and not as colorful but those are his markings one on each side, very rare and interesting... found him at petsmart too lol... they were like "you don't want that one, it's not healthy." i was like "oh, why not?" and their reply was "it's not striped its messed up!"
little did they know... muah ha ha ha

Do you mean the left side of the clown looks like the first picture and the right side of the clown looks like the second picture?

poeticpyro wrote:the photos are NOT of the clown, the clown i have is very shy and not as colorful but those are his markings one on each side, very rare and interesting...

so those are pics of different clowns, but look like yours? sorry just a little confused about the pics also.

either way, the pattern on the first one is very cool-lookin, haven't seen that one very often, kind of a "double-saddle".

I have a similar situation with one clown loach with 4 stripes (avatar pic), he is the slowest grower and it seemed the others could tell he was "different" also. although he seems to be low man in the pecking order, very active and energetic.

I read the info on clown patterns and felt lucky to have my "mis-print" also

congrats on finding him, and try for some pics if you get a chance, would like to check him out.

The fish in the 2nd photo is one of mine.

poeticpyro - it would have been courteous if you had asked my permission for the use of one of my photographs in your message, and then said who's photo it was. I wouldn't have minded you using it, if you had asked first.

Some of the odd patterns found in Clown Loaches are thought to be throwbacks of their captive breeding via hormone treatment. I have quite a number of Clowns with variations on the 'standard' markings, and they are all accepted in the shoal, just as regular Clowns. They are not all slow growers either.

Emma

Apparently the odd markings are attributed to hormonal injections as most clown loaches available in the market are bred in captivity as opposed to being wild caught, as mentioned by Emma.

Clown loaches with odd markings used to be thought as an oddity and as the occurrences were low, they were viewed as being rare and uncommon. However, it seems that such oddity are getting increasingly common. Personally, it does not indicate a good sign as clown loaches with original markings will be getting more uncommon.

As much as we appreciate fanciful markings once in a while, the original markings on clown loaches are after all, supposed to be plain stripes.

Just some thoughts.

Emma Turner wrote:The fish in the 2nd photo is one of mine.
Some of the odd patterns found in Clown Loaches are thought to be throwbacks of their captive breeding via hormone treatment. I have quite a number of Clowns with variations on the 'standard' markings, and they are all accepted in the shoal, just as regular Clowns. They are not all slow growers either.

didn't know that about the markings, interesting info. It seems I have always read (and assumed) they were just "genetic variations" for lack of proper scientific name, kind of like birthmarks or something, in my laymans terms.

also on the "slow growing" I mentioned, didn't want to imply all oddly marked clowns are slow-growers, just happened to be similar situation to my gang.

always appreciate the info Emma, feel free to set me straight anytime, am always learning new things about loaches from lurking about here at LOL.

any luck on photos of your clown poeticpyro?

alright... well i'm sorry, but i did find the picture off of google and there was NOTHING attatched to it... sorry. um... the pictures are of two clowns, but i have ONE clown and each side is different (patterns that are in the picture)...

the curiosity factor running very high here first because you have a clown that has 2 different sides, second that you found pictures of 2 other clowns that are "the same" pattern on half of them, and third that it seems no pictures of your clown are possible.

Its all good, not tryin to be weird or anything, just like to see this fella is all. I'll just "fuse" those 2 clowns above in my head