how many Clowns

[Spyder]

Hi all,

I have a 300 gallon planted tank. I have 6 Botia Kubotai and 13 Corys plus lot's of dither fish. I would like to add Clown Loaches to the mix. How many would be a good fit for a 300 gallon tank. The tank is 8' long x 2' high x 2.5' wide. I know they get very large and I am thinking long term. I would like to add 7 but this needs to be a long term number.

Thank you for any advice.

[Emma Turner]

A tank that size can comfortably hold 7 clowns for a long time. I would actually recommend that you add a few more than that, if space (not sure of your overall stocking levels) and filtration (bigger clowns are quite messy fish and need a good amount of filtration) allow.

Emma

[Spyder]

Hi Emma and thank you for your reply. I am well stocked. I have 10 Pearl Gouramis and a large Snakeskin Gourami. Also two fully grown Bristlenose. The rest of the fish are small, Tetras, Cherry Barbs, Ottos and a bunch of Juvi Bolivian Rams. The Ram count will go down cuase I am selling them off to LFS's and at auctions but I have so many it will take a while.

My filtering is heavy. I have two Eheim canisters. One is the 2128 Pro 2 and the other is the new Pro 3.

So, when you say more Clowns, how high a count would you do.

[Emma Turner]

Hi Michael,

If you re-think your dither fish and then re-home some of them, then I can see no problem with adding at least 15 clown loaches. They will be happier in a larger group and you will get to observe so much fun social interactions between them all.

As a guide, I have around 45 clowns (ranging from 3.5" up to 12") in my 1000 litre aquarium, along with about 12 medium-large sized Puntius filamentosus, a few Ancistrus, and a handful of 'old timers' (mostly Hemigrammus ulreyi) from my old tank. We have 2 of the Eheim Professionel 3's and one Eheim Prof 2 (2028 I think). There are also 2 XL powerheads in the tank for extra flow and water movement.

Good luck,

Emma

[DarrenMnaples]

wow i wish i had room for an 8 foot tank im am stinking of envy

[Curtis]

Emma -

Do you plan to leave the 45 clowns in the tank permanently? or at some point will you rehome some of them?

I guess the other question would be, what is the max number of clowns would you feel comfortable living in your tank permanently with few other fish?

[Emma Turner]

Eventually we plan to get them a bigger tank, or even an indoor tropical pond . With the space limits in our current house, we'd either have to build a sizeable extension, or else move to a bigger place at some point.

We don't plan on adding any more clown loaches to the current set-up, because in addition to the space constraints, the actual heiracrchy within the group is nicely balanced as it is.

Emma