Loaches Online Forum

Hi there,
I have a 55 Gallon tank with 6 clown loaches, 2 yo-yo's, (other fish are 10 cherry barbs, 5 silver danios, corrydoras and a pleco). I bought my clown loaches about a year ago, and all of them have grown nicely since then except one. This one has remained the same tiny size as when I bought them. He is also the only not shy one - I see him swimming all over the aquarium during the day, while all the other loaches hide, so I think he is getting enough food. But why is he not growing then?? Is this normal or is there something wrong with him?

The other question that I have is regarding algae. Although I'm feeding my fish once a day only and have fast days, and do bi-weekly 15% water changes, I have a lot of algae in my aquarium, and recently started to have periods with white cloudy water. A friend recommended that I try "Algae Magic" to help with the algae and Big Al's Bio-support to help with the cloudiness. Both claim to be organic and not harmful to fish. Have anyone here tried these and were the loaches ok with it? And most importantly, did it work?

Btw, to forestall questions, I have quite a number of live plants, my tank is not in direct sunshine, pH is 6.5, temp 28 C, no ammonia detected, nitrate is at 5 mg/L.

it's probably when the fish was in the holding tanks ready for export, some fish don't get enough food in them places and if very young i can stunt their growth it should still grow abit more but not like the rest of your clowns.
i've had the same with the fish i've bred in a batch there will be a small percentage that never seem to grow.

hope this answers your question, and welcome to LOL.

mick

Thanks a lot!

there is one theory that the bigger loaches might release hormones into the water that slow the growth of the smaller loaches (so they can keep their dominance)

i am not sure if its fact. Mick's theory sounds very likely.

sorry i cant be of any help on your algae problem. Are you in the US? apart from the cloudy water, what sort of algae is it?

Hi Helen,

Where did you hear of that theory. I would be interested to learn more about it.

Mike

i wish i could remember. sorry. sometimes my mind just squirrels away random information

Hi Helen
I'm in Canada, and the algae that I have is black brush algae, which, for reason I can't quite figure, has gone out of control.

Hi Nevenka, Siamese Algae Eaters (Crossocheilus siamensis) may help you with your algae problem. But check about the compatibility with all the species you have.

My daughter's tank had black algae and it worked for her.

Mike it's a practical theory, in every brood of fish your raising there will be certain fry that double in size whereas the others become prey to the largest.
look at anabintid fry bud, it could be called natural selection.


mick

sometimes it can help to get rid of the algae if you remove the item its on, and scrape the alge off with a razor. make sure the scrapings dont end up in the tank. i have some in my tank too. My garra cambodgiensis ate a small amout of it. i just got used to it. it wafts about in the current, and it gives the fish somewhere to nose around in to search out tiny morsels of food.

there are several people from cananda here, they may have tried the treatments you reccomended

Nevenka wrote:The other question that I have is regarding algae. Although I'm feeding my fish once a day only and have fast days, and do bi-weekly 15% water changes, I have a lot of algae in my aquarium, and recently started to have periods with white cloudy water. A friend recommended that I try "Algae Magic" to help with the algae and Big Al's Bio-support to help with the cloudiness.

You might find the forum sections listed below helpful- I found them when I was looking into adding plants to my loach tank. So far no algae issues, but I'm sure there will be as I continue to make adjustments in my tank... anyway, there is a lot of info there about algae maybe more than you want to know!

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/algae/