Loaches Online Forum

A couple of weeks ago I bought three clowns to restart my clown loach population after a move. Yes, they came from one of the big stores... I should have known better, all three succumbed to ich within days.
Now, I have looked at several LFS in the area, as well as online retailers and even the chain stores and no one seems to carry them at the moment, if they do, the fish look very sickly and one of the employees at Petsmart told me that all of the clowns they have gotten in recently, have ich. So is there a problem at the supplier? Does anyone have info?

It has always been this way in my experience. The clown loaches that come into any big box store almost always seem to be either skinny, icky and/or small. The only time you find large clown loaches in when someone has traded them in for whatever reason and then that is always mom and pop shops, not big boxes.

I don't know if this will get me in trouble and I don't have more room personally (already have 8 good sized clowns in my 125), but I was looking for some fish online yesterday and noticed that http://www.tangledupincichlids.com has 8" clown loaches for sale right now, listed as available.... not inexpensively priced however...

I believe that clowns are seasonal. The normal season for catching them is from March-July IIRC.

theyre really only short in small cities