Post by MADMIKE on Sept 24, 2006 18:41:44 GMT -5
Clown Loaches
One of the greatest joys in freshwater aquaria is keeping the ever-elusive clown loach (Botia macracanthus). Unfortunately aquarists often find themselves at a loss literally in how to care for them. Many myths, half-truths, and flat out wrong opinions abound. Finding any really good information is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. I hope to dispel a lot of the rumors about them and provide a solid outline for their care. This is a beginner’s article in Clown Loach care; more in depth articles will be written on this species covering various topics not included here.
How to select a good source for your clowns
When searching for your fish you want to be sure to get the healthiest ones possible. Selecting a source for your loaches takes some legwork but pays off in the end. The ideal fish store will keep their clown loaches in a freshwater setup which best approximates the PH of your local water system so that acclimation to your tank will be easier. Some other things to note are:
* Clown Loaches should be kept in groups of 3-5+ at the very minimal. At the very least you should be bringing 3 home with you the first time you buy them. If you are a first time Clown Loach owner do not buy any Clown Loaches under 2 inches in size.
* As a part of your Clown community invest in Dither fish. Clowns like to be able to poke their heads out of their caves and see other fish swimming about letting them know it is ok to come out and play. Dither fish can be any group of peaceful fish that actively swim about all levels of the tank. It is very important to note that Clowns do not do well with any species of aggressive fish or territorial fish; especially territorial bottom dwellers. Re-arrange any tank the clowns will be going into to, if it is an established community tank, to allow them to establish their place in the tank.
* Do they have a hiding place for the clowns? Caves, vegetation, rocks, driftwood, etc all play an important part. Clown loaches kept in a bare tank are going to be much more stressed; therefore having weakened immune systems and be prone to stress related deaths and ick. Being a more fragile fish keep in mind that you might just have one die for no apparent reason at all. This is part of bringing them home and is normal. Check and see if the fish store has any fish guarantees.
* Are the clowns a good color? Any excessively pale “whited out” clowns are extremely stressed out and bad candidates for bringing home to your aquarium. You will want to make sure that the clowns have a distinct edging to the striping pattern showing at least some of the black and orange/yellow coloration.
* Do the clowns appear well fed? Ask the store what they are currently feeding the fish and how often/what time of the day. Many stores will keep clown loaches in a “community” tank setup and only feed during the daytime, which puts the clowns at a disadvantage for getting their share of the food. Avoid any overly thin clowns that appear to have been under-fed. Nursing a starving clown loach back to health may seem like a noble idea, but in the end you will probably end up with a dead fish. You ideally are looking for the fish with the brightest/darkest coloring and that is very active. The harder it is for the store employee to catch your clown loach the better off you are. Healthy clowns should be hard to catch! Avoid any with obvious signs of lethargy when being chased with a net! If you have any questions about the condition of the fish then do not bring them home! Come back in a few days and see if the fish are still doing well at the store.
What kinds of tank do they like/need?
Clown loaches are very slow growers, but it does need to be kept in mind what their final size is. They will eventually out-grow any tank less than 125 gallons. What does out-grow mean to me? I judge outgrow as having occurred when the fish is longer than the width of the tank thus making it difficult for the fish to turn their body while swimming in the tank. Take note I said width not length! Out-grow also takes into consideration at which point a fish will begin to feel cramped and begin to stunt growth. Clown loaches are commonly available for sale at the sizes of .5 inches to 4 inches or 1.27 cm to 10.16 cm. Clowns of this size (under 4 inches) can start out in a minimum sized tank of 20 gallons. Any smaller and you will stunt their growth. They should be moved to a 55-gallon or larger tank when they reach 5 inches and 80 gallons plus when they reach 6-7 inches. At this point you should be planning for their permanent large tank for them to reach full growth without stunting 120 gallons+. A lot of people like to ask if they can just stunt their fish to fit inside of their currently sized tank. This is a misnomer. Yes you can stunt their growth to a certain degree but understand you can only cheat nature out of so many inches. Clowns will achieve a maximum size of 12 inches in the aquarium. Do not believe for a second you can cut that down to 4 inches. Your fish will just become stunted and die an early death.
Clowns do best in with a sand or gravel substrate in the tank that allows them to dig. Live plants work ok with smaller clowns, but larger clowns will completely uproot and destroy/eat any attempts you might have at keeping live plants with them. An excellent choice for clown loaches is Java Fern as they refuse to eat this tough plant even as they grow larger. The filtration on the tank needs to be excellent with no heavy waste producing species present in the tank. Clown loaches are well known as indicator fish. Your water parameters fall the least bit off (nitrites and ammonia) and you risk them dropping dead on you. They are especially sensitive to chlorine. Any chlorine in your tank can lead to massive clown loach die offs. Make sure your tank cover is secure with no holes at all; Clowns are great jumpers and can find the smallest openings in your tank lid.
Tank decorations in your aquarium need to incorporate hiding places for your clowns and have no sharp edges for these fast swimmers. 98% of clown loaches sold in the world are wild caught. They are used to vegetation and dense hiding places. The more crowded your tank looks the safer they will feel. They prefer spaces that they can tightly fit into and having several so that they can duck out of sight quickly. I recommend no less than 3 caves for the loaches; one on each end of the aquarium and one in the middle. Caves can be any number of materials: stacked rocks, coconut caves, flowerpots, stacked driftwood, P.V.C. pipes, etc… Any stacked materials, which might be a danger to the fish if they fell, should be glued together with aquarium safe silicone and allowed to dry before placement into the tank. One way to make any artificial caves look more natural is to train Java moss to grow on it. Another is to completely coat the object with silicone on the outside and roll in the aquarium’s gravel or sand thus coating the cave and making it look more natural. After the object has completely cured (24-48 hours) it can be added to the tank. Be sure to incorporate a tank background preferably with vegetation/rocks/wood type scene. Not only affix it to the back but cut pieces for the sides of the tank if you don’t look through it much. The amount of confidence it will give them and security is well worth it.
Last but not least is lighting. Clown loaches will be much more active during the daytime if you keep subdued lighting in their tank. You can do this by buying bulbs which put out less light, buying a dimmer switch for your lights, only plugging in some of the bulbs instead of all of them, or placing a layer of microwave safe cling wrap over the bottom of your lighting fixture so long as it is NOT clinging to the actual light bulbs. The microwave safe cling wrap will not melt under the intensely hot lights and comes in darker colors that will help further subdue the lighting. If you have glass tops to your aquarium the cling wrap can be attached to it as well. Another trick is to hang your aquarium lights from your ceiling at a farther distance from the tank so that the light does not shine as intensely down into it. Any method you choose your clowns will thank you for it by coming out far more often!
Things to keep in mind when you first bring your clowns home…
Float bag 5 minutes-10 minutes. Introduce water from your tank to the bag till the bag if full (50% store water 50% your tank water. Let float for additional 5-10 minutes. NET the fish from the bag and place into the tank. Make sure all tank lights are off. Leave them off till the next day. If you use a quarantine tank do not introduce the new clowns to the main tank until after one month. Quarantine tanks can help spot sick fish and protect your main tank’s fish population.
I would recommend first making sure they have enough places to hide. (Can’t say this enough!) They will establish a main hang out then another 2 or so hiding places that they will feel safe using in other places in your aquarium farther from the main cave. If you do not have enough places for them to hide they will not feel safe and will not venture from their main caves very far at all.
Clowns do not have any venom, but they do have blades (called spines) on their head regions; and they know how to use them. They use them on each other while fighting over who is going to be alpha fish. When you handle clowns in nets you have to be very careful those spines do not get caught in the net. Usually the spines only scratch other clowns during alpha fights but every once in awhile they will get you if you are handling them or if you put your hands in the tank and scare them.
Your clowns may sometimes make a clicking noise that is distinctly audible. That clicking noise is a happy noise. Your clowns will make it when you feed them their favorite foods.
When clowns become scared or fight their colors might change. The dominant clown usually has the darkest coloration of all your clowns and will become darker when fighting. The submissive clowns will turn pale. When a clown becomes extremely stressed out they will turn completely white so that it is hard to even distinguish the stripes. There is a distinct difference between the three noticeable color changes. Clowns “white out”, “gray out”, and “blacken up”. A stressed out clown turns pale and whitens out. A fighting sparring clown will gray out to various shades of gray depending on their place in the clown pack. The most aggressive alpha clown will have the darkest gray coloring. Lastly clowns black out which shows a state of relaxedness. The last state is rarely if ever seen in the aquarists’ tank. Not all Clown groups fight but in the ones that do they are just establishing their pecking order.
Keep in mind that clowns like very tight spots. Don’t be too concerned when they dig tunnels under tank objects and cramp themselves behind filter tubes and heaters. It is in their nature to do so and they feel more comfortable.
Clown Loaches often sleep on their sides. This causes many new owners to believe that their fish has died. It is simply in their nature to do this and if you try to net the “dead fish” out you will be surprised at how fast they wake up.
Clown Loaches are scale-less fish which are much more sensitive to medicines and aquarium salt than other scaled varieties of fish. Just keep this in mind and only do half-doses of either when the need is there.
Feeding your Clown Loaches
Clown Loaches are undeniably true carnivores in the wild supplementing their diets haphazardly with some vegetation, but doing more plant shredding than eating; and always preferring the meaty meal to the vegetative one. I feed them 3 times a day (yes three) after reading up a lot on their eating habits. They prefer several smaller meals several times a day rather than one bigger meal. I also feed mine quite the variety of foods (can’t stress enough how important a variety of foods is for their diet!) including but not limited to blood worms, sinking shrimp pellets, algae wafers (you’d be surprised how much meat is in these read the labels), carnivore wafers, tubifex worm cubes, spirulina wafers, etc…As they get larger they will delight in live foods responding well to feedings of live worms, brine shrimp, and fry. Once your clowns become of breeding age they might just eat your entire school of dither fish one night. Clowns prefer to eat from the bottom of the tank when they are eating non-live foods but will also take foods from the top (flakes and pellets). They grab it with their mouth and swim quickly into the cave dragging it down with them. It is important to note that some foods may have to be offered repeatedly over a period of a couple of weeks for the clowns to decide if they like it or not. Commonly on the first feeding of something new they will not even try it.
One of the greatest joys in freshwater aquaria is keeping the ever-elusive clown loach (Botia macracanthus). Unfortunately aquarists often find themselves at a loss literally in how to care for them. Many myths, half-truths, and flat out wrong opinions abound. Finding any really good information is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. I hope to dispel a lot of the rumors about them and provide a solid outline for their care. This is a beginner’s article in Clown Loach care; more in depth articles will be written on this species covering various topics not included here.
How to select a good source for your clowns
When searching for your fish you want to be sure to get the healthiest ones possible. Selecting a source for your loaches takes some legwork but pays off in the end. The ideal fish store will keep their clown loaches in a freshwater setup which best approximates the PH of your local water system so that acclimation to your tank will be easier. Some other things to note are:
* Clown Loaches should be kept in groups of 3-5+ at the very minimal. At the very least you should be bringing 3 home with you the first time you buy them. If you are a first time Clown Loach owner do not buy any Clown Loaches under 2 inches in size.
* As a part of your Clown community invest in Dither fish. Clowns like to be able to poke their heads out of their caves and see other fish swimming about letting them know it is ok to come out and play. Dither fish can be any group of peaceful fish that actively swim about all levels of the tank. It is very important to note that Clowns do not do well with any species of aggressive fish or territorial fish; especially territorial bottom dwellers. Re-arrange any tank the clowns will be going into to, if it is an established community tank, to allow them to establish their place in the tank.
* Do they have a hiding place for the clowns? Caves, vegetation, rocks, driftwood, etc all play an important part. Clown loaches kept in a bare tank are going to be much more stressed; therefore having weakened immune systems and be prone to stress related deaths and ick. Being a more fragile fish keep in mind that you might just have one die for no apparent reason at all. This is part of bringing them home and is normal. Check and see if the fish store has any fish guarantees.
* Are the clowns a good color? Any excessively pale “whited out” clowns are extremely stressed out and bad candidates for bringing home to your aquarium. You will want to make sure that the clowns have a distinct edging to the striping pattern showing at least some of the black and orange/yellow coloration.
* Do the clowns appear well fed? Ask the store what they are currently feeding the fish and how often/what time of the day. Many stores will keep clown loaches in a “community” tank setup and only feed during the daytime, which puts the clowns at a disadvantage for getting their share of the food. Avoid any overly thin clowns that appear to have been under-fed. Nursing a starving clown loach back to health may seem like a noble idea, but in the end you will probably end up with a dead fish. You ideally are looking for the fish with the brightest/darkest coloring and that is very active. The harder it is for the store employee to catch your clown loach the better off you are. Healthy clowns should be hard to catch! Avoid any with obvious signs of lethargy when being chased with a net! If you have any questions about the condition of the fish then do not bring them home! Come back in a few days and see if the fish are still doing well at the store.
What kinds of tank do they like/need?
Clown loaches are very slow growers, but it does need to be kept in mind what their final size is. They will eventually out-grow any tank less than 125 gallons. What does out-grow mean to me? I judge outgrow as having occurred when the fish is longer than the width of the tank thus making it difficult for the fish to turn their body while swimming in the tank. Take note I said width not length! Out-grow also takes into consideration at which point a fish will begin to feel cramped and begin to stunt growth. Clown loaches are commonly available for sale at the sizes of .5 inches to 4 inches or 1.27 cm to 10.16 cm. Clowns of this size (under 4 inches) can start out in a minimum sized tank of 20 gallons. Any smaller and you will stunt their growth. They should be moved to a 55-gallon or larger tank when they reach 5 inches and 80 gallons plus when they reach 6-7 inches. At this point you should be planning for their permanent large tank for them to reach full growth without stunting 120 gallons+. A lot of people like to ask if they can just stunt their fish to fit inside of their currently sized tank. This is a misnomer. Yes you can stunt their growth to a certain degree but understand you can only cheat nature out of so many inches. Clowns will achieve a maximum size of 12 inches in the aquarium. Do not believe for a second you can cut that down to 4 inches. Your fish will just become stunted and die an early death.
Clowns do best in with a sand or gravel substrate in the tank that allows them to dig. Live plants work ok with smaller clowns, but larger clowns will completely uproot and destroy/eat any attempts you might have at keeping live plants with them. An excellent choice for clown loaches is Java Fern as they refuse to eat this tough plant even as they grow larger. The filtration on the tank needs to be excellent with no heavy waste producing species present in the tank. Clown loaches are well known as indicator fish. Your water parameters fall the least bit off (nitrites and ammonia) and you risk them dropping dead on you. They are especially sensitive to chlorine. Any chlorine in your tank can lead to massive clown loach die offs. Make sure your tank cover is secure with no holes at all; Clowns are great jumpers and can find the smallest openings in your tank lid.
Tank decorations in your aquarium need to incorporate hiding places for your clowns and have no sharp edges for these fast swimmers. 98% of clown loaches sold in the world are wild caught. They are used to vegetation and dense hiding places. The more crowded your tank looks the safer they will feel. They prefer spaces that they can tightly fit into and having several so that they can duck out of sight quickly. I recommend no less than 3 caves for the loaches; one on each end of the aquarium and one in the middle. Caves can be any number of materials: stacked rocks, coconut caves, flowerpots, stacked driftwood, P.V.C. pipes, etc… Any stacked materials, which might be a danger to the fish if they fell, should be glued together with aquarium safe silicone and allowed to dry before placement into the tank. One way to make any artificial caves look more natural is to train Java moss to grow on it. Another is to completely coat the object with silicone on the outside and roll in the aquarium’s gravel or sand thus coating the cave and making it look more natural. After the object has completely cured (24-48 hours) it can be added to the tank. Be sure to incorporate a tank background preferably with vegetation/rocks/wood type scene. Not only affix it to the back but cut pieces for the sides of the tank if you don’t look through it much. The amount of confidence it will give them and security is well worth it.
Last but not least is lighting. Clown loaches will be much more active during the daytime if you keep subdued lighting in their tank. You can do this by buying bulbs which put out less light, buying a dimmer switch for your lights, only plugging in some of the bulbs instead of all of them, or placing a layer of microwave safe cling wrap over the bottom of your lighting fixture so long as it is NOT clinging to the actual light bulbs. The microwave safe cling wrap will not melt under the intensely hot lights and comes in darker colors that will help further subdue the lighting. If you have glass tops to your aquarium the cling wrap can be attached to it as well. Another trick is to hang your aquarium lights from your ceiling at a farther distance from the tank so that the light does not shine as intensely down into it. Any method you choose your clowns will thank you for it by coming out far more often!
Things to keep in mind when you first bring your clowns home…
Float bag 5 minutes-10 minutes. Introduce water from your tank to the bag till the bag if full (50% store water 50% your tank water. Let float for additional 5-10 minutes. NET the fish from the bag and place into the tank. Make sure all tank lights are off. Leave them off till the next day. If you use a quarantine tank do not introduce the new clowns to the main tank until after one month. Quarantine tanks can help spot sick fish and protect your main tank’s fish population.
I would recommend first making sure they have enough places to hide. (Can’t say this enough!) They will establish a main hang out then another 2 or so hiding places that they will feel safe using in other places in your aquarium farther from the main cave. If you do not have enough places for them to hide they will not feel safe and will not venture from their main caves very far at all.
Clowns do not have any venom, but they do have blades (called spines) on their head regions; and they know how to use them. They use them on each other while fighting over who is going to be alpha fish. When you handle clowns in nets you have to be very careful those spines do not get caught in the net. Usually the spines only scratch other clowns during alpha fights but every once in awhile they will get you if you are handling them or if you put your hands in the tank and scare them.
Your clowns may sometimes make a clicking noise that is distinctly audible. That clicking noise is a happy noise. Your clowns will make it when you feed them their favorite foods.
When clowns become scared or fight their colors might change. The dominant clown usually has the darkest coloration of all your clowns and will become darker when fighting. The submissive clowns will turn pale. When a clown becomes extremely stressed out they will turn completely white so that it is hard to even distinguish the stripes. There is a distinct difference between the three noticeable color changes. Clowns “white out”, “gray out”, and “blacken up”. A stressed out clown turns pale and whitens out. A fighting sparring clown will gray out to various shades of gray depending on their place in the clown pack. The most aggressive alpha clown will have the darkest gray coloring. Lastly clowns black out which shows a state of relaxedness. The last state is rarely if ever seen in the aquarists’ tank. Not all Clown groups fight but in the ones that do they are just establishing their pecking order.
Keep in mind that clowns like very tight spots. Don’t be too concerned when they dig tunnels under tank objects and cramp themselves behind filter tubes and heaters. It is in their nature to do so and they feel more comfortable.
Clown Loaches often sleep on their sides. This causes many new owners to believe that their fish has died. It is simply in their nature to do this and if you try to net the “dead fish” out you will be surprised at how fast they wake up.
Clown Loaches are scale-less fish which are much more sensitive to medicines and aquarium salt than other scaled varieties of fish. Just keep this in mind and only do half-doses of either when the need is there.
Feeding your Clown Loaches
Clown Loaches are undeniably true carnivores in the wild supplementing their diets haphazardly with some vegetation, but doing more plant shredding than eating; and always preferring the meaty meal to the vegetative one. I feed them 3 times a day (yes three) after reading up a lot on their eating habits. They prefer several smaller meals several times a day rather than one bigger meal. I also feed mine quite the variety of foods (can’t stress enough how important a variety of foods is for their diet!) including but not limited to blood worms, sinking shrimp pellets, algae wafers (you’d be surprised how much meat is in these read the labels), carnivore wafers, tubifex worm cubes, spirulina wafers, etc…As they get larger they will delight in live foods responding well to feedings of live worms, brine shrimp, and fry. Once your clowns become of breeding age they might just eat your entire school of dither fish one night. Clowns prefer to eat from the bottom of the tank when they are eating non-live foods but will also take foods from the top (flakes and pellets). They grab it with their mouth and swim quickly into the cave dragging it down with them. It is important to note that some foods may have to be offered repeatedly over a period of a couple of weeks for the clowns to decide if they like it or not. Commonly on the first feeding of something new they will not even try it.