Loaches Online Forum

I have posted a number of Videos..Facebook..Freshwater Passion.... on some very unordinary clown loach activity...

I have had them 20 years...there now moving gravel and building "nest"...any advice would be great...

]https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreshwaterPassion/

Sorry I could not see your text or pics.

My 23 year old CLs have plenty of spawning behaviour where the males chase and swim alongside the females but no eggs have ever been laid.

Any updates?

I just reviewed many of those videos on Facebook. To me, it looks like typical "boss" clown loach behavior, where they are competing for both food and space. As for the digging, your fish are simply looking for food in the gravel. It could be leftovers, but could also be live things as snails, worms, planaria, ect. There is an invisible food chain in all established aquariums, that you can't see with the naked eye. The bacteria, algae, and plankton are the foundation of this microbial world in our fish tanks. That world becomes larger and more complete, as our aquarium ages. So when and if one of the clown starts digging or looking for live food buried in the gravel, the boss clown will fight for it because it's technically in their space.

I have about 40 clown loaches, which are 12-20 years old, ranging from 4" to 11" inches long. They are kept in a 400 gallon multi-tank aquarium system with a footprint of about 30 square feet, with a continuous drip water change system. Even with all that space, the clown bosses fight often, even when they aren't hungry. My rouge clowns dig all the time looking for treasures and there's not much the boss clowns can do about it because I have so many clowns. Anyways, the tanks are over 10 years old and sometimes I can actually see the worms in the gravel that the clowns are digging for. They are some type of blackworm, bloodworm, or tubifex worm. They are probably everywhere in the gravel, especially near the bottom.

Same here....

I have two very mature females one of them could now be 10 years of age. I purchased her when she was a 5 incher a few years ago. The other one is 6 years old and is nearly as big as the 10 year old one. I grew her from a baby with another 4 loaches that appear to be males. The females, especially one, looks bound with eggs. I also purchased three 5-6 inch loaches this year that were a return by someone in the fish shop. I have younger loaches too. So I have a good bunch in my tank with loaches that are nearing breeding age.

I've seen spawning like behaviour, males chasing females, especially the two large loaches but of course never any sign of eggs. The first tiime I saw the spawning like behaviour was last year, before I added the 3 new mature loaches actually, and just after I moved them to this pond. My bunch at the time was roughly 5 years old.

Here are mine now in the video below. The big mama loach that looks preggo will appear at some stage. She's been that "fat" not for that long and if I had a normal tank to be able to see the fish from the side it would be better visible but mine are in a pond. She appears at around 0:15 into the video below. The second biggest one also shows up. Its hard to tell the size of them by taking the video from above but last year I measured the big mama at 9 inches. You can also tell by comparing to the size of the corydoras.

Sorry about the net. I installed it when I lost a loach to jumping this year. I was devastated so now I have this ugly thing obstructing the view

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ggSpC ... e=youtu.be

From the video I can not confirm anythink. I can only say that feeding - basically overfeeding - the parents with fish is said to be an important factor.

Most likely first some starving (dry season) and than lots of food, that is rainy season

Oh, no..The video is just my clown loaches roaming around I haven't had the chance to take a video of when they actually try to "spawn". Its always in the dark.

Well, I loved your video!...but I'm not quite sure what I seeing.

They look very well fed but I'm not sure that's spawning I see. I don't know what spawning looks like exactly...I'm hopeful for you & your clowns. Keep us updated! I love your "pond of clowns".

The video is not from them "spawning" but from them eating. I posted it because one of the big loaches is gravid. Apologies for the confusion.

Very nice video. Interesting for the different perspective compared to more usual "glass box" aquaria. The Clown Loaches appear to have more freedom and are not so confined as mine are so the pond is quite refreshing to me.

It is so interesting that the Clown Loaches do not spawn readily in aquaria despite the range of aquaria we have.

Perhaps Mr. Legendre will discover the secret to their spawning in Sumatra ?