Loaches Online Forum

I'd put a bigger group (actually I do -- no problems). The standard recommendation is 6+ for botia and I'd go higher than that. They grow slowly, you can upgrade the tank in a year, more likely two.

But tetras do worry me.... good chance of them having "accidents" and this has nothing to do with how many sids you will have in the tank. My sids shared the tank with fp.gardneri, one of the larger strains and smaller fish (say under 2" --- still way larger than your tetras will get) could not survive the sids' attention.

Wow, I'm so surprised. So many 'info' sites listed them as great in community tanks, very peaceful. So far they are VERY high energy but haven't been aggressive. Would you only recommend them in a species only tank? Or with semi-aggressive fishes?

So many 'info' sites listed them as great in community tanks

Because so many 'info' sites copy information from other sites without any verification whatsoever.

All right... no need to listen to me, and it seems that nobody else here keeps sids ...

Go to Facebook, open the Loach Fanatics group, find thread by Julie Howarth from Dec 11th, 2004, and read it. (sorry for no direct link, this is Facebook ).

i was just expressing surprise. I'm listening! You have much more experience than I, it would be foolish to disregard your experiences. Maybe there's a good reason not many people have sids! I was merely asking what you thought they might mix well with (if anything) based on what you've seen and heard.

Really best starting point is to read that thread.... it will give you partial answers and multiple opinions. You can ask there too.

(Ooops... from Dec 2014, not 2004, of course)

In general it is impossible to predict just what would happen, the beauty of loaches is that they have personalities both as individuals and as groups and can always surprise. Clown loaches are peaceful by all accounts, kept by many more than sids and most people would not believe you if you were to tell them the story about clowns dismembering rainbowfish... but this is a recent story on this forum which you probably saw. With clowns, I'd think this is one chance out of thousand to hit such behavior... with sids it is considerably higher, probably > 50%. But you may be lucky too. I'd be willing to bet $10 that the tetras will meet a sorry end... I would not bet $100.

Would you only recommend them in a species only tank? Or with semi-aggressive fishes?

Species only is one way... with other botias that are robust enough is another ... probably with top fish that is > 2x their size but no guarantees here ... now, with fish that is their size or smaller I would not even experiment, and I would surely not experiment with corydoras, sids seem to dislike them particularly.

As for my experience: do not overestimate it I tend to go for species tanks in most cases, besides not worrying about compatibility a larger group of one type of fish is usually more attractive/interesting than a soup of species. Seeing how different individuals of the same species interact is interesting and sometimes surprising,,, seeing how individuals of different species interact is worthless except for special cases when both species actually come from the same habitat and are perhaps designed to interact). So my experience is limited to single species and an unsuccessful attempt to keep them with fp.gardneri (larger than sids!).

hth

There's nowhere to escape in a 15 gallon tank.

True... but I suspect the tetras will not do well even in something like 55g.... just may take a bit longer.

Rather than post a long reply, please see the post I have on the Loach Forum, about five posts down right now. Your initial post sounds very similar to mine. Rather than explain what I did and how my clown loach looked and behaved, just read the whole thread and see what you want to do for your own treatment. The name of the post is "VIDEO--Skinny clown", started by me, FranM.