Loaches Online Forum

I have TONS of snails. I am interested in adding some clown loaches to the tanks to keep the problems down. I have clown loaches in all my tanks, but have never tried them in my endler breeding tanks, which often have fish fry in them. Being a down-turned mouth fish, will they bother the fry or leave them alone? The clown loaches I plan on adding in are about 2cm or so long. (all the others are way to big lol, being around 3-4+ inches in the downstairs community tank

thanks in advance!

Although it can't be predicted what every fish will do, I have 40+ clowns in a 1000 litre tank that are a range of sizes up to 12" TL. My Puntius filamentosus have successfully bred in this aquarium, none of the loaches showing any interest in the tiny fry whatsoever.

In my opinion, people should only keep clowns in tanks that are dedicated to their care and because they really want them, rather than just for the purpose clearing up snails. Clowns of only 2cm in size are not likely to be able to manage snails of much a size anyway.

You'd be better of occassionally 'harvesting' the larger snails from your fry tanks (a few are good to help eat up uneaten food in the fry tanks anyway) and drop them in to the tank with the larger loaches. It will then be an ongoing food supply that they will really enjoy, without compromising on their conditions. The smaller snails that are left can then grow on and breed, then you can harvest the larger ones again when ready.

Emma

I actually had a similar question.

I was going to put platies in my upcoming tank with loaches (striata, yoyos, kubotai, maybe dario) and wanted to know if the loaches would do anything to keep the platy population in check? I'd like to get a combo of male/female platies but don't want the 100s of fry that could result. I'm not sure of whether the platies themselves would be able to keep their numbers down.

Emma Turner wrote:In my opinion, people should only keep clowns in tanks that are dedicated to their care and because they really want them, rather than just for the purpose clearing up snails. Clowns of only 2cm in size are not likely to be able to manage snails of much a size anyway.

If I didn't want them, I wouldn't have lots of them The new ones are to small for the downstairs tank, and I can fish out the large snails, but more wanted them to tidy up the small ones while they are growing big enough to not be eaten in the large tank

I can't believe that clowns won't pick away at endlers, especially fry. They might not eat them while you are watching, but at some time. And if they enjoy the taste of them more than snails ...

YellowFinned wrote:I can't believe that clowns won't pick away at endlers, especially fry. They might not eat them while you are watching, but at some time. And if they enjoy the taste of them more than snails ...

I think I will move the endlers out, move the loaches in to eat the snails I cant pick out then rotate them to another tank til they are big enough to go downstairs

thanks all!

I think you'd be best off harvesting the snails and feeding them to your loaches in the aquarium they are settled in, rather than moving the loaches about in order to eat these snails out of different tanks. Clown loaches need stability. However, it is your decision, this is just my opinion.

Emma

I wouldn't think it would bother them to move every 4 or 5 months til they are big enough to hold their own downstairs. Will give it some serious thought though. All the tanks are set up the same, so not sure that they would think anything of it lol.

Emma Turner wrote:I think you'd be best off harvesting the snails and feeding them to your loaches in the aquarium they are settled in, rather than moving the loaches about in order to eat these snails out of different tanks. Clown loaches need stability. However, it is your decision, this is just my opinion.

Emma

I bought a snail trap lol prob a waiste of £6 but I have tried everything, cucumber on a string, scooping them out, useing Snail Away (I did take the fish out first) and even boiling everything and keeping everything seperate tank to tank, and they still appear!