I bought clown loach Number 7

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Loachloach
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I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 12, 2015 9:51 am

I went to the shop today and couldn't resist. There was this lonely baby clown loach left in the tank and he was so cute and lively. He's has normal stripes and not an odd ball but I actually don't like the odd ball looking ones. I brought him home and he's been acclimated right now.
I have another 6 clown loaches but he won't join them for a while. He'll be quarantined in his own tank in case I have to deal with the dreaded ich. I hope not this time either but can't take a chance.

The tank has a UV filter so I hope this will help although the bulb needs changing, plus I am raising the temperature right now just in case. The idea is to fatten him up on fancy food and make him tame and eat out of my hand from a young age as they are not so shy when babies. He'll have platy fry for company and lots of water changes and proper care. Fingers crossed.

I am reluctant to put meds as I haven't medicated any of my loaches and they were fine. He's apparently been in the shop for at least two weeks and he's not sunken just underfed I think. I'll take a picture once I put him the tank and he's settled.

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mikev
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 12, 2015 10:23 am

Congratulations!
He'll be quarantined in his own tank in case I have to deal with the dreaded ich. I hope not this time either but can't take a chance.
That's the way to do it. :D
The tank has a UV filter so I hope this will help
Funny enough, UV in a qtank is not necessarily a good idea -- IMO. Let's say he does have Ich. UV will kill some of it, not cure the disease.... end result may be that you may miss the disease.... Not all too likely with clowns, but possible.

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 12, 2015 10:50 am

Thanks Mikev.

The bulb is nearly a year old so I doubt it it's very functional to be honest. You probably think I should medicate for parasites?


The loach will be there for a good while. He's way too small to go in with the big ones as he won't get any food being that small. And I'll have plenty of time to monitor him and see how it goes. The tank is well established and well filtered. The only problem is it's open top. I hope he doesn't flip out.

His colours seems to have come back right after I put him in and he explored the tank and kind of "sniffed" at the baby platies. I left them in there to keep him company because they are outgoing, as otherwise he may get too skittish and stressed being on his own. I would have bought two loaches but they only got the one.

I took a very bad picture in the dark just now to show how small he's is. He's is centre bottom of the picture obstructed by a bit of moss.

Image

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mikev
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:22 am

You probably think I should medicate for parasites?
I would myself, but not really necessary in this case. If the fish has Ich, you should be able to see it and there is no danger to spreading to your older clowns. If the fish has internal parasites, the chances are they are indirect, so you are only risking the skinny disease affecting this one fish later on.

I prefer treating up front because I simply do not have time to carefully observe every tank.

Something else: My preference is to quarantine in an empty tank, at most a hiding place (PVC). Two reasons for this: (1) I can see the fish -- you will not notice Ich if the fish is hiding in plants (2) If I do have to treat, I may end up destroying the plants.

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:40 am

My preference is to quarantine in an empty tank, at most a hiding place (PVC). Two reasons for this: (1) I can see the fish -- you will not notice Ich if the fish is hiding in plants (2) If I do have to treat, I may end up destroying the plants.
I totally don't care about the plants so if I need to treat it's no problem. This tank is a mess plant wise. I've been meaning to put dirt substrate since last year. I pulled out all the plants one day a year ago, all shrimp too, as it was a shrimp tank mainly but then I noticed a tiny baby fish sucking on the glass which turned out to be a baby otto. So in order not to stress him I had to stop right there. I was just about to scoop the substrate out then and the filter had been off for a few hours. Then I left the tank running for him only. He's grown since and been moved out of that tank. Then I put what appeared like a sickly platy, that platy was not sickly just preggo and produced a bunch of fry that survived as there was no one to eat them.

There are just a couple of crypts in there that I chucked back in a year ago and from a couple of strings of left over moss I ended up with two football size grown moss which is overtaking the tank. The plants are battered because I don't dose nutrients in there at all. There are no caves so I can see everywhere if needs too as I understand I need to observe him.

Should I leave the lights off all day?

Right now he's exploring the tank and seems fine enough for a newbie. He's not hiding. I dropped some frozen red plankton for the other fry and he grabbed a few of them. And there are snails in there which he may find tasty eventually :D

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mikev
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 12, 2015 12:02 pm

Leaving off light -- if the light does not bother the fish, no point.
(It is a good idea to leave off light the first day especially if the fish came from mail, but no point after this)

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 12, 2015 12:08 pm

OK. Thanks. I can leave it off, no problem. It's got a moon light setting so I might turn that on later on to have a better look at him.
Right now he's following the larger platy fry around the tank and they are seem quite annoyed about it. Poor lonely thing. He seems just about 3cm long from what I can tell.

I've been just reading that the survival rate of such small clown loaches is very low. :?

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mikev
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 12, 2015 12:30 pm

Loachloach wrote:
I've been just reading that the survival rate of such small clown loaches is very low. :?
Yes, because they tend to end up with beginner fishkeepers, and these things are more dangerous than Ich.

I suspect your clown will do fine. :P

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 12, 2015 12:34 pm

Well, wish me luck. I hope he makes it. I'll let you know how he gets on in the next week or so.

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mikev
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by mikev » Sun Apr 12, 2015 5:24 pm

Best of luck, then!

Hope he does make it... but even if not, not the end of the world... as long as your other clowns are not endangered.

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 12, 2015 5:51 pm

Thanks Mikev.

The baby clown has been busy hunting a snail for the last two hours. Meaning, the snail is sitting in one place and the clown is poking it and nudging it not being able to figure out a way to eat it. He's been on and off at it constantly. He doesn't seem to notice there are more snails in there :roll: and keeps coming back to this snail.

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Mon Apr 13, 2015 6:53 am

My bigger clown loaches normally do a dance every morning begging for food.
This morning the little guy was doing the same but on his own :) Cute..

He took a few nls pellets and blood worm so seems to have a healthy appetite enough for being one day with me.

I wonder how long does it take for white spot to appear if this guy brought any? Temp is right now at 28. I raised it 4 degrees yesterday so I'll wait a bit for further increase. I am reading at those temps if there's white spot it will show up in a few days only. It's been just a day but he seems he's liking his new tank, has been knocking down snails off the glass all morning but doesn't seem to know he needs to go down and eat them.

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mikev
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by mikev » Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:03 am

I'd think about a week for ich to show up. Not totally predictable, besides the temperature there is a factor of how many clowns you have in how much volume of water .. one is slower than many.

You still want to quarantine a month at least.

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Mon Apr 13, 2015 12:02 pm

Thanks mikev.

I won't be moving him that soon regardless, just wanted to have an idea about the white spot.

Loachloach
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Re: I bought clown loach Number 7

Post by Loachloach » Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:01 pm

And for the record a short video of him.
He is a savage. When I dropped some NLS pellets he went bananas and he started nipping the platies away from the food when it was falling, instead of actually eating the food. He's the biggest fish in there and he's the boss already :lol:

Please excuse the state of the tank. It's not really a tank I want to show off :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOi_lyh ... e=youtu.be

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