Intro and question for clown loach experts please :)

[Trin20kau]

Hi, very new to the forum (first post actually), so hello everyone for the first time! I have read stacks and stacks of info on here since I decided to get back into my aquariums and knew that the number one fish on my list was the CLOWN LOACH!! I love those guys. So thank you all for such good clear information on their care. It's taught me a lot. I'm sad to say I had my first clown loaches years ago. At the time I was a complete beginner to fish (or water) keeping, so I had no idea the loaches I had were too small for my three foot tank, especially seeing as I had seven including other fish. Seriously overstocked. I kept them healthy and happy for about three years though, at which stage they were around 5-6 inches long. I was planning to upgrade to a six footer because by this time I had learnt more about their needs when disaster struck and I lost my entire stock thanks to a person who is no longer a friend. I was devastated and it put me off doing anything with aquariums any more...I was mourning my fishy friends and wasn't able to GET my tanks in order to move them to our new house

Anyway, a few years later and I am just now starting to get back into my hobby. I currently have only a small 80 gallon tank which has a few small cories and guppies in there, but I am bringing home my 3x2x2 tomorrow, and plan on setting up a basic tropical community tank with a river manifold system (my experiment before I get a large enough tank to have loaches again). Today I got the opportunity to get a 6x2x2 tank that comes with two clown loaches (10 cm & 15cm) along with a few other fish I plan to give to a good home or sell on because they are not really compatible with clowns anyway.

Onto my question...I planned on setting up my 6 footer bare from scratch and install a river tank manifold onto it, with a spray bar and home made backdrop, scape it all myself etc to be a dedicated clown loach tank (with a couple of compatible friends). However, if I can get this established tank, I'll be saving myself huge amounts of dollars...it has one of the filters I already planned on and a few other things I would have needed to make/buy.

Would my 3 foot tank be too small to house a 10 cm and 15 cm clown loach (by themselves) for a short period of time? It would be maybe 2 weeks, perhaps three at the most. I would do as much of the cutting, fitting, making and testing beforehand, leaving the fish in their own tank for a few months while I thoroughly cycle the 3 foot tank.

When everything is ready, my plan is this:

-stop feeding for a few days and leave the lights off, then catch the fish and transfer by drip acclimating the two loaches to the three foot tank, moving their fluval fx5 with them to the new tank along with its existing fluval 405 to keep the bacteria alive while I'm doing my scaping.

- remove the water, substrate etc. Clean the glass down well with vinegar, rinse a lot and dry out thoroughly

- last minute fittings on the manifold, spray bars and background, seal them all together, let cure for 48 hours then flush well.

- install above into tank, seal manifold and back ground in tank with silicon, let cure 48 hours, rinse well

- plant and scape the tank, fill it, move the old fluval fx5 back and set everything running...dose with clear ammonia while testing parameters for about a week to make sure everything is stable.

- move the fish back the same way I moved them across.



Is this okay? I won't be stressing them out too much by halving their running length for a couple of weeks will I? Especially seeing as they'll be escaping the cichlids they are currently being housed with, and then providing them with a better tank for their requirements at the end of this? Or is there a better way/different way I should do it? Scrap the idea totally? Please help, I am dying to have some gorgeous clowns again, but I want to do everything right this time around, (kinda make up for my old fishes tragic end, y'know) so I'm looking for advice from the experts!

Thanks

[Diana]

Sounds like you have it well planned.
As long as you sell or otherwise get rid of the less compatible fish I see no reason a couple of mid-sized Clown Loaches could not be housed in a 3' x 2' x 2' tank while you get their bigger, better tank ready.
Yes, keep the filter going and move it with the fish. This will keep the biological filtration going.
Probably no need to drip acclimate, if the new water is similar to the old water (GH, KH, TDS within 10% of the values). If you have water consistancy issues with your tap water then I would save and move most of the old water, so that it is like a water change rather than all new water. However, if the water is similar you can move them into all new water.

[Trin20kau]

Thanks very much Diana! I am so excited to be getting my clown loach tank set up years early and hundreds of dollars cheaper than I thought it would be. Dream come true.

[chefkeith]

River manifolds don't work that well on large tanks. An FX5 and fluval canister should provide more than enough water flow. I'd just add more canisters if necessary.

A few drawbacks of a manifold:

Powerheads cost money and burn electricity.
The sponges and powerhead clutter the inside of tank.
The powerheads might make the water too warm.
Powerheads are noisy and vibrate in the tank, which may or may not interfere with some of the fishes senses.
The sponges get clogged.
Time is needed to maintain the sponges and powerheads.
Need a deep gravel bed to keep the manifold covered.
The manifold once installed in the tank is impossible to clean.

[glenna]

I am also a fan of the canister filter idea, though I have got say I have not personally done the river manifold set up myself.
I have several medium sized tanks (55g, 75g, 125 g) with a mixed bag of filtration: a wet-dry plus Rena Filstar canister on the 125g, a Rena filstar on the 75 g, a Rena filstar and a HOB on the 55g. I also have some smaller tanks with Fluval canisters, which I do not think are a well made as the Filstars (the plastic seems thinner, the tubing not as sturdy, but they have worked just fine, so I should not complain).

I use Koralia flow pumps to increase flow and reduce dead spots in the tanks and the clowns do love the extra flow. I do not think they are loud or overly obtrusive in the tank, but are a bit pricey.

Will be interested in seeing what you end up doing. This is always my favorite part...setting up the tank aquascaping.
have fun!!

[Trin20kau]

So glenna and chefkeith, you would advise just running a couple of canisters then? With the existing fx5, what would you suggest would be needed with that for water movement? The tank I've looked at is a custom job, plumbed with the water intake going out through the floor, via a sump, then pumped into the fx5 to return. Both intake and output pipes are through the bottom of the tank, so it should be easy for me to set up water current down low. Would you put spray bars on the outlet across the end of the tank to spread the water flow or just leave it as is?

I gotta say, it'd be easier not to do a manifold system, and just leave the tank looking as clean as possible of equipment (more room for wood and rocks and plants lol).

[chefkeith]

The FX5 is a beast of a filter and will provide enough water flow by itself, but for redundancy purposes, it shouldn't be the only biological filter. I'd recommend running the sump separately, from the FX5, or getting another canister just for bio-filtration. I've had times where I've forgot to turn back on a filter, or the filter quit working, so having that secondary bio-filter is vital for keeping water conditions stable.

Also, I usually have spray bars mounted vertically, so that the the water flows in a circular direction around the perimeter of the tank. That's just my preference, as I think the circular flow is more efficient than end over end water flow. I like a quiet tank also, with little to no splashing noise. Horizontal spray bars near the surface of the water are better for surface agitation though. If you have a lot of big fish that consume a lot of oxygen, then that might be best for them.

[Trin20kau]

Great help, thanks Keith. I'll see how I can fiddle with this monster and get it the way I like.

[glenna]

the only concern I have about depending on a canister filter for both filtration AND flow is that, depending on the piping INTO the tank from the can, you might lose flow if it was necessary to put in any elbows, or other turns on the way.
For example, my sister has a reef tank set up with the sump and pumps set up in the room behind, so everything is lower than the tank, and on the OTHER side of the wall. In order to do that, (and because or architechural elements already in place) she had to put an elbow in the plumbing, and of course there was the distance from the filter to to the tank. Anyway, she lost a fair amount of pressure with what seemed like a reasonable amount of distance.
You will not beat the FX5 for filtration with a canister. Chefkeith's comment about the biofilter is why I have a separate wet dry on my tank, but an additional canister would also work.
I still like using koralias for flow and I do not think they are too obtrusive.