Loaches Online Forum

Hello, I am new to this forum. I made an account so that I could ask a question to which I have not found any proper answers elsewhere online.

A couple days back, I witnessed one of my clown loaches (roughly 14cm long or just above 5inches) eat one of his tank mates, a male endler guppy. I have never before seen this and I was always under the impression that clown loaches were non-aggressive and had good temperament. The guppy happened to be swimming around the mouth of my clown loach and the little guy was taken in one gulp, spat out 15 seconds later then swallowed again.

All the "are clown loaches compatible with ..." posts on the internet come back with a vast majority of yes, they are compatible. Although a few people mention that the clown loach can be a predatory fish.

My question is, after eating a guppy, will my clown loach now hunt and eat the other male endlers?
He has had a taste so I imagine he now views them as food. So far, the other 4 are all accounted for but I was kind of worried. The clown loaches have been fed plenty so it is not a hunger issue as far as I know.

250 litres, planted aquarium with plenty of hiding spots. Readings are all great.


Thanks in advance.

Loaches are opportunistic, while they don't typically hunt other fish if they see an opportunity to eat a smaller fish they will. Some of the more aggressive Botiine loaches will sometimes go after smaller fish. I would move the endlers to another tank or they likely will slowly disappear.

Yeah, it's hard to see that tiny fish will be eaten by larger fish but that's what happens. In almost every way, every day, that's what will occur...as mellow as clowns can be, they can & will eat very small tankmates...& endler males are quite small. Rescue the one's you can if you have another tank but don't blame the loaches...blame poor stocking of big & small fish...live & learn!

In general any larger fish can eat a smaller fish that is about 1/4 its size. Obviously this is not true of all fish, but is a reasonable first guide, and is true of most fish that do not normally prey on other fish.

Predatory fish are often capable of eating a fish up to 1/2 of its size. They may not always succeed, but they will try.

The stress for the little fish to be living in a tank with significantly larger fish, even if the large fish is not predatory can lead to disease, short life or other results.

I have had half grown Yoyo Loaches eat full grown Neon Tetras. Yoyos were around 3", maybe a bit larger, Neons were a bit less than half that. The Yoyos were growing really fast, eating snails (lots of protein!) and grew from 1.5" to 3" faster than I realized.
I have not had Clown Loaches eat their tank mates, but I don't put small fish in their tanks.

Clown Loaches are usually not very aggressive (Some individuals can be). They can be predatory, though. The 2 terms refer to different behaviors.

I have recently seen Anthia my 22 year old 10.5" Clown Loach eat a 1cm Bristlenose young which swam in her direction.

Another reason for not keeping small "Neon" sized fish with Clown Loaches and other large fish may be to avoid stress. I believe that I have observed stress behaviour in Cardinal Tetras involving tight shoaling, loss of colour and perceived poor health. So, even though my Clown Loaches never ate them they may have been constantly stressed by the presence of larger (predator sized) fish.

This was many moons ago when my Clown Loaches were younger and I did of course remove the Cardinal Tetras and replace them with much larger dither fish (now Congo Tetras).

Predatory fish are often capable of eating a fish up to 1/2 of its size. They may not always succeed, but they will try.

or their own size... or even larger

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tself.html

not clowns, obviously.

In the past, my clowns have eaten fry, and other small fish, such as tetra's. Now I have some heavily planted tanks to keep the little ones safer. Also have a few rock piles to keep small bottom dwellers safe.