Loaches Online Forum

I hate opening new topic, so sorry.

In your experiances, how do clowns usually demage plants? By totally taking them out of ground, or punching little holes in leaves. I have only one big enough adult, and no plants with big demage on them, but I am finding this "strange" holes in leaves of my Hygrophilia corymbosa.

"You honour, exibit A" . Now, is this ussually the kind of demage they are doing to leaves?

Yes.

In answer to your alternate damage scenarios they will do both.

Martin.

In a word- YES.

And worse, much worse. I moved a small Saururus cernuus (Lizard Tail) plant out of the clown tank recently, as they found it so tasty they would pick it clean of leaves, then wait for it to re-leaf and go at it again!

Kate

these are typically "Clown-bites" , my Clowns (truest sense) eat only echinoduros-leaves NO other veggies...

They do it more, when the the leaves lack iron (turnig a bit brighter).

Your bites could also be where the clowns spotted a nest of snail (or other) eggs, they don´t bother to change to the right side - just snap through it... My leaves look much more torn appart. But the leaves grow fast enough - so it´s "fine"

Thanks for answers.
So, they actually eat the leaves or they just punch holes through it "for fun" or way of behaviour?

Both. Actually, I think the holes are just occasional 'tastings'. They don't seem to do much more than a hole here or there to the plants they don't actually decimate.

Kate

Try offering some romaine or leaf lettuce & like wolfram said, swords without enough iron are tastier. Mine rarely do it anymore (knock wood). The only times they were very bad was when brine shrimp got blown onto the plant.

NancyD wrote:Try offering some romaine or leaf lettuce & like wolfram said, swords without enough iron are tastier. Mine rarely do it anymore (knock wood). The only times they were very bad was when brine shrimp got blown onto the plant.

You offer them fresh, boiled?

mine wiill shread grasses into pulp and eat leaves completely.

I can see my Cryptocoryne wendtii with damaged leaves now. But who cares. I still love my loaches anyway.

Fresh raw veggies & thawed frozen shrimp. They don't seem to like red lettuce quite as much, I think the color may be from higher iron in part.

Yes, clowns, especially as they get bigger, will forage, uproot, dig under, pop holes, bulldoze and in general mess with plants. I've had larger clowns even peel java fern that has been attached for years on bogwood right off the wood. They get their noses under there and lift! Poof! tons of little floating java fern bits and pieces.

Algae wafers, veggies, all kinds of food, but they still like to mess with the plants. Doesn't seem to be all for the food value, but often for the fun of it. They're like puppies. Chew on anything.

so you guys just throw raw vegetables into the tank then???...like lettuce and cucumber???

I find they like washed cucumber raw, peeled cantaloupe pieces, but zuchini they will only take if I blanch it. Lettuce or leafy plants they ignore mostly. They do seem to also love the brown algae (diatoms) that will grow on stones or plant leaves.

Dan2007me asked

so you guys just throw raw vegetables into the tank then???...like lettuce and cucumber???

Rubber band the veggies to a rock so they can eat it without chasing it or having it float on the surface.Cucumbers are great, lettuce is not very nutritional so I avoid that like Shari, wash or blanch to avoid any trace pesticides or other contaminents entering your system