My six Clown Loaches have reached 22 years of age.

[redshark1]

Temp is 27C and always has been. I use two heaterstats to provide the wattage. That way if one heaterstat fails either off or on, the temperature change is not a fatal one. Heater failure is guaranteed over 22 years. I always buy a proven brand (Visitherm in my case) as they definitely last longer and I keep spares.

[Curtis]

How many clown loaches did you start out with 22 years ago?

[redshark1]

Hi Curtis, the short answer to your question is:

In 1995 I purchased 1 Clown Loach, added another 6 Clown Loaches, in 2003 removed 1 Clown Loach due to aggression and purchased a replacement for the aggressive Clown Loach but then lost the replacement when it became trapped in an ornament.

The long answer, should you be interested, appears below:

In 1995 I purchased a single Clown Loach. I travelled to a favourite shop where I used to live in another city because I knew I could rely on the health of the fish. I telephoned to check that Clown Loaches were in stock. However, when I got there the Clown Loaches were a different colour to what I expected. They were paler and much less colourful so I bought only 1 and not the shoal I was expecting to buy.

I therefore looked around for more Clown Loaches and purchased 6 more in groups of 3 from two further shops.

The 7 Clown Loaches were tiny and emaciated. Today, with my greater knowledge and experience, I wouldn't purchase fish in that state .

I was lucky to pull them all through the whitespot that they came with or developed on arrival. Six of them were cured in the aquarium. The seventh and worst affected loach was floated in a margarine tub and fed live bloodworm while the King British WS3 malachite green treatment was increased gradually to triple the recommended strength. This desperate measure did the trick and I have this loach today.

In 2003 I removed one of the loaches due to continual aggression. There had always been two larger fish which had equal dominance in the group. They regularly had little skirmishes like a trial of strength. These skirmishes, however, were more like a ritual and not nasty in any way. The fish soon settled down again next to each other after each skirmish.

However, gradually a third fish increased in size quite dramatically and challenged the dominance of these two larger fish. It nipped and chased all the loaches continually for a whole month without any change. The peace of the aquarium was totally disrupted. I had set a deadline at which I removed the aggressive loach and took it to my LFS where it was gratefully received.

Shortly afterwards I could not resist purchasing a small but healthy replacement when i saw a fish which had very different and interesting markings. Despite being tiny compared to my other loaches it was completely accepted into the shoal. However, after I had not seen it for several weeks I took all of the caves and other hiding places out of the tank only to find it's remains inside one of the ornaments. I assume it had become stuck in there as I have had at least one incident of Clown Loaches stuck in places from which I was able to free them (involving breaking the ornaments in question). At this time I reviewed the hiding places I was providing to try and avoid this happening again. This has worked and involved giving them places to hide behind and amongst (e.g. roots) but not giving them places to hide in (i.e. squeeze into).

The six remaining fish have stayed with me to this day and I hope will be here for many more. There are only two fish older than mine whose owners I am in contact with. One fish is ten years older than mine but is declining rapidly as we speak. The other is a year older than my fish and in good health.

[Curtis]

Thanks for sharing your story.

Clown loaches from Sumatra seem to be rare compared to Borneo clown loaches. I'm not sure why that is. Currently in Ohio in the US all the clown loaches appear to be from Sumatra which isn't the norm.

In my experience I have not found the Sumatran Clown Loach to be less colorful. I found a photo online to show you what some of mine look like. I haven't taken the time to get good pictures of my loaches yet. My loaches look very similar to the picture I am linking.

The picture is definitely of a Sumatran Clown loach. If you notice the pelvic fin is red. The clown loaches from Borneo have a mostly black pelvic fin with an outline of red.