Loaches Online Forum

Almost two weeks ago i was asked to please take this 4 foot tank with only 3 clown loaches. We moved it in to our house in less than two hours. I am an experienced Marine Aquarist, not so much tropical fresh water. Any way my worry is that the biggest loach is always hiding and i have not seen her eat. They get floating wafers, pellets and bloodworm. They hide as soon as i move to the tank. They must know i am not their previous owner, she has had them over 8 years. They are between 5 and six inches in size. It is a 4 " tank about 50 gallons. The water is good, no Ammonia, Nitrites not sure of the Nitrates that test kit is old . PH is 6.8 temperature 26 c. I am at my wits end, how can i get them to eat? Also put in some zucchini they were not interested, i think they never had that before. I have done 25 liter water change every 4 days. The two smaller ones do get active when i am just sitting near by and i think they have little nibbles of the food they get as they do not look as though they have lost condition. The bigger one I worry about the most. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Ellen.

They can be shy and may take a while to get more confident. They can be stressed from the move. Try feeding them at night time, lights off. Also, they may prefer cucumber to zucchini.

Thanks for the reply. I will try cucumber.

Our loaches are kept at around 28 degrees. They are super comfortable and if they see me coming they are usually waiting for food. We have a range of sizes from 1.5 inches to over 10 inches. 30 in all. We rarely turn the tank lights on, but they receive natural light during the day. When we inherited our loaches we did not feed them the first day and they had not been fed for 2 days before the move. It really seemed to help with the stress level. Be it right or wrong we also added 1 tbsp. of salt for 40 litres when we did our initial setup. Did you bring the original filter from where they were originally established? Do you have any pics of your tank. We feed our loaches a high quality sinking pellet and algae wafers and treat them with shrimp. They may need a little more time to become secure. If your water quality is good I would suggest backing off on the water changes 1 every 7 days for the first couple of weeks. I find our loaches get skittish and hide when we do water changes more often than this. Hope this helps. Not an expert, but this works for me.

It can take a few weeks for them to adjust to their new home. Skip the floating food, although they may learn to eat off the surface in time. Try feeding just after the tank lights are out for the night but with room lights on like loachloach said. Clowns are naturally crepuscular, dawn & dusk active. After they are eating well you can slowly move back feeding time with lights on. Mine loved romaine but to get them to try zucchini I poked pellets or wafer bits into small slits. Good luck!

I C Mud wrote:Our loaches are kept at around 28 degrees. They are super comfortable and if they see me coming they are usually waiting for food. We have a range of sizes from 1.5 inches to over 10 inches. 30 in all. We rarely turn the tank lights on, but they receive natural light during the day. When we inherited our loaches we did not feed them the first day and they had not been fed for 2 days before the move. It really seemed to help with the stress level. Be it right or wrong we also added 1 tbsp. of salt for 40 litres when we did our initial setup. Did you bring the original filter from where they were originally established? Do you have any pics of your tank. We feed our loaches a high quality sinking pellet and algae wafers and treat them with shrimp. They may need a little more time to become secure. If your water quality is good I would suggest backing off on the water changes 1 every 7 days for the first couple of weeks. I find our loaches get skittish and hide when we do water changes more often than this. Hope this helps. Not an expert, but this works for me.

Thank you for your advise. The loaches are a lot better and are eating even had a little fight over the food. I am happy about that. The biggest one is still very shy though. They do swim around more now as well while i sit near by and watch them. As far as water quality goes, no problems there. They seem to be OK with water changes, they just stay in one corner till i am finished.

NancyD wrote:It can take a few weeks for them to adjust to their new home. Skip the floating food, although they may learn to eat off the surface in time. Try feeding just after the tank lights are out for the night but with room lights on like loachloach said. Clowns are naturally crepuscular, dawn & dusk active. After they are eating well you can slowly move back feeding time with lights on. Mine loved romaine but to get them to try zucchini I poked pellets or wafer bits into small slits. Good luck!

Thank you Nancy. The CL. Are eating now and seem more active. As an ex Marine aquarist i never thought i could get attached to these Clown Loaches but i am. When they do there dance they remind me of Dolphins, just beautiful.

Ellenmac wrote:

NancyD wrote:It can take a few weeks for them to adjust to their new home. Skip the floating food, although they may learn to eat off the surface in time. Try feeding just after the tank lights are out for the night but with room lights on like loachloach said. Clowns are naturally crepuscular, dawn & dusk active. After they are eating well you can slowly move back feeding time with lights on. Mine loved romaine but to get them to try zucchini I poked pellets or wafer bits into small slits. Good luck!

Thank you Nancy. The CL. Are eating now and seem more active. As an ex Marine aquarist i never thought i could get attached to these Clown Loaches but i am. When they do there dance they remind me of Dolphins, just beautiful.

https://vimeo.com/69602642

Nice

Thanks for sharing