Loaches Online Forum

I am new to clown loaches and have a nice tank setup with 4 clowns. I have some standard flake food and am looking for better. A lot seem to talk about Hikari Sinking Carnivore Pellets and Hikari Algae Wafers. I've also read good things about Sinking Shrimp Pellets as well. Any preferences?

Hi mellofone, and welcome to LOL.

Yes they LOVE Hikari Sinking Carnivour Pellets, also their floating sticks.

Read here for tons of feeding suggestions:

http://www.loaches.com/almanac/feeding.html

Martin.

Great, thanks for the tip. I've tried cucumbers, but I can't get the darned things to sink

I'll try both the Hikari pellets and wafers; variety can't hurt!

Hi mellofone, welcome to Loaches Online from me also!

Try and give your Clowns a good mixture of dried and frozen foods (plus some vegetable matter such as the cucumber). With regards to frozen foods, they particularly like mosquito larvae and brineshrimp, and will move on to bigger stuff as they grow. If you want to try the cucumber again, push a small plant-weight through it, and it'll cause it to sink to the bottom.

Emma

LFS didn't have the Hikari Sinking Carnivour Pellets, so I opted for some Aquarian Sinking Shrimp Pellets which 3 of 4 seemed to like. They kind of snubbed the algea wafers... Oh well, at least they are eating finally. They still seem a bit shy, but they are starting to come out of their caves more and more each day.

Mine will eat whatever your give them. Flakes (any kind, any brand), shrimp pellets, carnivore wafers, sinking wafers, algae wafers, any frozen food (mysis shrimp, brine shirmp, blood worms, white/glass worms, krill, beefheart), cucumber, banana, snow peas, lettuce (iceberg, romaine, and green), and finally precooked cocktail shrimp (no sauce ).

My point is, that once they are settled, they will probably eat anything you put in the tank.

Martin Thoene wrote: Yes they LOVE Hikari Sinking Carnivour Pellets, also their floating sticks.

Hmmm....tried this right now with strange results. None of the species listed below is a Carnivour:

Clowns: no interest.
Kubotais: no interest.
Yoyos: started eating after about 10 minutes
(my yoyos eat everything ... this was slow)
P. Oblonga: hysterical, all came out from hiding.
Schisturas: ditto...
P.Myersi/P.Semicincta: no interest.
Giant Danios: played ball with a pellet.
BN Pleco: actually came out from his hiding place to check it (highly unusual)...

So far, sounds like a useful tool for catching black kuhlis...

None of my LFSs seem to carry the Carnivour Pellets, but I can tell you that my clowns _LOVE_ Aquarian Bottom Feeder Sinking Shrimp Pellets. They are still very shy, but once they hover over the pellets they sure don't last long!

Hikari have had problems with importing food into the UK from japan, im not sure about other countries, so that may explain why you have had problems finding it in shops. its now sorted for them to export it again, so shops can get it easier again.

i would have to travel a long way for hikari pellets, so i buy mine from the internet. aqualifeuk.com have them, as do a few other places.

my loaches also love sera granules (again an internet shop job!)

Have you found the pictures of Emmas fish devouring melon? they seem to have smiles on their faces

No I have not. I'll have to poke around the forums and find them!

Here you go mellophone.............

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=1861&start=0

Martin.

You can try buying a food clip which can stick to the side of your tank to hold your slices of cucumber or zucchini (my loaches & pleco enjoy nibbling on this). Just remember to change it every day because it can dirty the water very quickly. Clown loaches also love sucking snails out of their shells. Sometimes when you buy live plants from some pet stores, they are a bit dirty and have some snails living on them. You can try to cultivate the snails in a separate container and feed a few to the loaches every few days or once a week.

Great idea, I will try a clip. I cannot seem to locate any "plant weights" at the LFS.

Some more experimentation with Carnivour Food:

Firstly, there is no way to force my clowns to eat it. Tried several times, even delayed their meal by a few hours and offered only Carnivour, no interest at all. OTOH, they actually fight over TetraMin. Brand loyalty? Kubotai's will not touch it either.

So I tried it in the hillstream tank. The following additional species showed excitement: BN pleco (?!), undocumented Homaloptera (SpB, possibly H.Hoffmanni), Beaufortias (?!). No interest from the Cheni or Vantanmenia (SpA). I'm not risking feeding the Gastros with it, but my sense is that they would not touch it either.

The pattern seems to be that it is the more active/aggressive hillstreams are the ones that care about the brand.