125 gallon tank help...

[poeticpyro]

how many CLOWN loaches in a 125 gallon tank?
6feet by 18inches by 20inches

they'll have the following with them
9 tiger barbs
3 yo-yos
1 gold nugget pleco
2 pearl gourami
1 Opaline gourami


i need as many replies as possible... tank finishes cycling tomorrow and i'm going to chuch the barbs in first since if they die they're easier to replace than a 4" clown lol...

[crazie.eddie]

I will have 5 in my 125 gallon, but the largest is only about 4.5".

Regarding the Gold Nugget Pl*co, it may starve or resort to picking up scraps of food if there is any. The plecos quickly go for the more nutritious foods, and since they are bottom feeders, can get scraps from the smallest crevice. This will leave the gold nugget eating algae, if there is any.

I also have a gold nugget along with clown loaches. Whenever I try to drop blood worms near the gold nuggets area, the clown loaches get to it first. My only successfull feeding is if I drop shrimp pellets or algae discs near the pleco and drop Hakiri Sinking Carnivor pellets near the loaches. The loaches love the carnivor pellets as much as they love the snails.

Tiger barbs, if I remember correctly, are hardy fish and can withstand the changing levels during cycling. Unfortunately, they are aggressive fish and I'm not sure how well the gouramis will do against them.

[notoo7]

I have four large ones and three small ones in my 55 and they are active. Course my tank isn't as heavily planted as I have seen on here.

As for the Barbs, I have five in one tank. I was told five or more seems to mellow them out. They aren't as aggressive as when I had three. They now seem to to stay to themselves.

[Martin Thoene]

That's a "How long is a piece of string" type question. How many the tank might support at what size is more the question.

That depends on:

Filtration system (s)

Frequency of water-changes

Are you looking to keep a group long-term in there? You have to allow for growth, which may be considerable.

As an example, I've got 13 Clowns from 2.5" up to near 6" in my tank that size. They share with 2 2.5" Botia kubotai, 20 adult Tiger Barbs, 13 Corydoras aneus and around a dozen Danio kyathit.

That's quite a few fish, but the tank is filtered by two Rena XP3's, one of which returns through a Magnum 350 filter body being used just for extra biological media capacity,an Aquaclear 500 HOB, one of my River-Tank manifolds with a two sponge intakes, powered by two small powerheads and an additional small powerhead. Lots of mechanical, biological and chemical filtration, and the tank gets weekly 50% water-changes.

I know that in a while this tank will not be big enough for the Clowns. As they grow, it may become necessary to pass them on to someone with an even bigger tank because I can't really go bigger than this in a one-bedroomed apartment.



Martin.

[poeticpyro]

Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 6:14 am Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's a "How long is a piece of string" type question. How many the tank might support at what size is more the question.

That depends on:

Filtration system (s)

Frequency of water-changes

Are you looking to keep a group long-term in there? You have to allow for growth, which may be considerable.

okay... i'm sorry it's my fault i didn't put filtration etc down.
** i'll have 2 ehiem 2217's (filter each 136 gallons), two air pumps (one clown is ADDICTED to the bubbles) each air pump has two outlets and it for a 125gallon tank.

**water changes... once a week at the most (when they get bigger that's fine)

** I really want to keep them as LONG as possible, however i know they grow slowly and i would be willing to up the tank size again if i really had to.

i honestly was hoping between 7 and 9 clowns... if that's too many then 5? i like odd numbers, but I do NOT want to stress these guys out.


in responce to crazie eddie (sorry if i just messed up your name)
i'm really good with plecos and i know they need algae growth. i have algae wafers and the pleco would be quarantined in my other tank which grows algae like a weed. the tank is near a window (bad bad i know), but.. there's trees litterally SURROUNDING my house and it doesn't mess with the temp at all and the pleco's like the algae it produces, so it's a win win situation.

as for the barbs (don't remember who was talking about them)
they have been with gourami many times. since the group is so large they are more worried about spawning than anything else. i'm not kidding i have nine (3 of each color *green, normal, albino*) and the ratio for each of them is 1 male to 2 females!! so the loaches i'm sure have been dining on eggs lately.

if anyone else has tips/questions/advice it will be MUCH appreciated!! thank you all for all of your help so far!

[Martin Thoene]

Oh well in that case 7 to 9 is no problem. Sounds like a great setup.

Martin.

[poeticpyro]

thanks martin. so 7-9 full grown would be okay?
it's a nice tank 72.5" in length by 20" width and 23" tall

[DancesAlone]

125 gallon

2 Rena Filstar XP3's
Emperor 400
Penguin 330
AquaClear Powerhead
Airstone

Tank is water exchanged-half once or twice per week.
No live plants never worked for me, trashed and eaten!!

8 Clowns (2...6-7", 2...4-5", 4...5-5.5")
4 YoYo's (3..7+", 1...4")
1 Angel MoMo is over 6" top to bottom
3 Rainbow (4-5")
1 Bushynose Plec

I've had the clowns for around 3 years, two were bought larger (trade ins from someone else at LFS) YoYo's were purchased as micro scopic, they are going on 3 years. Angel was raised from less than a dime in size.

Grow slowly, hmmmmm not these clowns and I am saddened to say that they need a larger tank, this is not IMHO suitable anymore. They are crowded. Not everything is an exact science, and some folks clowns are alot more mature than mine and smaller. If you are ok with a larger tank in the future, or finding them new homes your set up should hold them nicely for awhile. Just thought since you were seeking lots of info adding my half cent might be of some help. Also at one time I did have a Gold Nugget Plec and it died within a year or so. At the time I was unsure of why but believe it starved. The clowns and yoyo's never wanted to let him eat. The bushynose female is more readily excepted by them and they do allow her to eat unlike the nugget. They did best with a common plec which got to be huge in short order and I gave him away. Best of luck to you and your new clowns.

[poeticpyro]

i'm not too worried about the pleco since right now they shoal with the two plecos and let it eat. i'm thinking though that i'm NOT going to get the pleco for a while (to help the tank be more and more established) it's near a window to help with algae growth too..thanks though, your post really did help!