clown loach diet (long question)

[libingboy]

got a few questions regarding clown loach diet, as well as temperature.
a little background on the tank.
substrate: very small, round gravel (no sharp edges). its slightly larger than tetrabits, but is surprisingly very uniform in shape.
each side of the 50 gallon tank has a 1500l/hr powerhead.

i was planning on feeding them frozen bloodworms/brine shrimp in the morning and various types of commercially prepared food in the evening. I stocked up on the following:
1. pleco chips
2. sinking granules (hikari for lionhead goldfish, and JBL bits for discus)
3. sinking carnivore pellets (sera for sturgeon and hikari)

so far, the loaches seem to only like the frozen stuff, and hate the pleco chips, even with garlic guard.

I was wondering, do loaches have teeth? coz they definitely canot eat items 1 and 3 whole. (too big for their mouths) do i have to break them up? not only will that be more troublesome, it also increases the chance the food will get sucked into the powerheads before it reaches the bottom. i could turn the powerheads off, but would prefer not to, just in case i forget to turn it back on.

i also have the following in my freezer, which i would like to know whether they are appropriate for clown loaches.
1. deshelled market shrimp. can quickly foul up the water if left overnight. however, pretty high in protein, and fishes seem to love it. loaches would need teeth though, to tear pieces apart.
2. beefheart-same pros and cons as market shrimp, but this breaks down much faster, so probably could be fed to toothless fish also. also, there's a lot of people who can make beefheart with the additives you want placed into it. (vegetable bits, astaxanthin, beta carotene, garlic, etc....)
3. frozen ghost shrimp (with shell) - they're pretty soft after getting defrosted, but once again, not quite sure if they can tear pieces apart.
4. mealworms - quite fatty though, and im not sure whether loaches can handle the exoskeleton. (we dont have earthworm/blackworm supplier in singapore)

so any experiences with these feeds would be appreciated.

last food-related question. How good are clowns in searching the gravel for food? i was thinking of adding a small talking doradid to eat leftovers, but if clowns are already efficient then i'd rather not.

i also have a question regarding water temp. This being summer, and with the powerheads inside the tank, my water temp is around 30C, even without turning on the lights. I actually thought my heater (set at 28) was damaged coz i never saw it lighting up. To cool the tank, i placed 2 large sponge filters with airstones to increase evaporation rate. Is this true? Or the main benefit is increased gas exchange? Do i still need to find ways to reduce my water temp? my other option is a wholesale change of filtration system, but then there wouldnt be a lot of current in the tank.

[Mark in Vancouver]

You're looking for answers from a nutritionist! Good questions though.

Loaches do not have "teeth" per se. Like many other bottom feeders, they rasp at food or they swallow it and do the mechanical "chewing" in their throats. Many loaches seem to prefer the frozen (fully thawed!) bloodworms, brineshrimp, daphnia, and so on over processed foods and pellets.

I keep a variety of loaches and most of them go for the meatier foods. Try finely mincing some of your frozen shrimp meat - really chop it into a paste wtih very fine pieces. My Botias love shrimp meat, and my brook loaches go for it as well.

Try Hikari sinking wafers - both the algae wafer and the one for carnivores. And experiment with raw or blanched vegetables. Cucumber and zuchinni can work if you can stick them to the bottom of the tank. If you boil a single frozen pea for three minutes, and let it cool - and remove it from its skin, you might see them chasing it around like a football.

For the ultimate treat, if you can find Sera brand "Nip" food tablets, try them out. They're made from all of the above, and loaches go berserk for them.

I feed the Botias (including clowns) flake in the morning and a Sera nip tab to share. At night I give them a 2 inch section of seedless cucumber, an algae wafer, and a mix of bloodworm and brineshrimp, both thawed. Little amounts of meat with the option of feasting on veg. It keeps the tank fairly unpolluted

I love when people think of these approaches to healthy fish keeping! Diet can make all the difference.

[Wendie]

I feed mine a variety of things.

Tetra Crisps
Bio Blend wafers
Shrimp wafers
Algae wafers
Frozen bloodworms
Frozen daphnia

They seem to love everything.

[shane harripaulsingh]

what do u recommend for small loaches ,about 3cm?

[Mark in Vancouver]

Shane - in this instance, size really doesn't matter. Same diet, just less of it. Remove uneaten food from the tank to keep the water clean, which is a way bigger concern. You'll find that they grow from that size very rapidly to around three inches (sorry for the metric/imperial), and that the rate of growth slows down after that.

Try to feed lightly several times a day with tiny loaches. It's better than giving them a big meal once, IMO.

[NancyD]

I find it sometimes takes a few offerings of a new food for my loaches to like it. The first peas I gave were spit out when they realized they weren't pleco-min tablets but now they like them. Keep trying, variety is always good.
Nancy

[Wendie]

I'm looking forward to trying out the Sera O-nip wafer that Mark mentioned above. I finally found some and ordered 100 tablets as I'm currently working on my third loach tank.

[libingboy]

so far, i have tried the frozen ghost shrimp a couple of times ... they seem to like it, it was gone the next morning. however, i think the shrimp might have had too much protein in them, as there was a noticeable build up of foam in the water surface this morning after last night's heavy feeding. i was told this is what happens when your feed has too much protein content in them. (this does happen in my bichir tank, which gets fed chunks of market shrimp.) so i guess this can't be a regular food item.

i saw some sera nip yesterday, pretty expensive fish food... i havent tried them out though, coz the shop's stock seemed old, so i'll look at other shops for it.