Loaches Online Forum

Okay, so the loaches in question are clowns. I've had them for about a year now, maybe a little over. my littlest one was super skinny when i got him, and he's not AS skinny, but he's definately not plump like my biggest one (i call him fat boy, he comes up to the tank and shows his belly everytime i walk in the room).

I've tried a lot of different kinds of foods with them. I tried bloodworms once before and they neglected them. They eat flakes (but I don't know if it's because they actually LIKE them, or if they're that hungry.) and I have sinking shrimp pellets that say they're good for loaches, and they like to grab them while they're floating down, but they don't soften up quickly enough and they drop them and leave them. I've even tried some veggies, and they wouldn't touch it. I've tried various other foods, and I just want to find one that makes me feel SURE that they're getting the food they need and not going hungry.

Today I went to the petstore and got some little snails (they gave them to me for free, and gave me a warning that they will multiply quickly.) And I just want to make sure, beforehand, that my clowns will atleast know what to do with them. I've had them for about a year, and never tried snails, so I don't know if they'll have an instinct that they're food, or if they'll ignore them.

Are there any other sure-fire foods your clowns love? Any tips for getting them to eat other veggies or bloodworms? Or if they neglected it before will they not go for it again?

Thanks in advance.

Mine love the New Life Spectrum foods. Right now they are eating Spectrum Thera+A, but they like the community fish food by Spectrum as well. They also like zucchini. I blanch it and then hang it in the tank.

A few of my clowns are very picky eaters too. About all they like to eat is snails, but I have a hard time keeping them in supply. I recently started feeding them fancy baby clams from out of the can. At first it took them about 30 minutes before they relised it was food, and now they are eating them up.

To prepare the clams-
I drain the juice from the clams, then freeze the clams in a thin layer in zip-lock bag. When it's time to eat, I break off a few pieces, then throw the frozen pieces in the tank. It's very clean food compared to worm type foods and snails. Lots of empty snail shells can really be an eye sore. I may stop feeding them snails altogether.

Try tetra-min wafers. frozen brine shrimp &/or mosquito larvae. Mine prefer the larvae. Small chunks of banana. Of course mine eat anything. You might want to treat them for parasites.

Winter options with less investment/more sustainability then brine shrimp:

Cheap flash-frozen small shrimp. Bash teh bag on the counter, then cut it open, take out one or two (flash-freezing has them freeze individually- no need to bust up all and re-freeze) and close bag again with twist-tie and put back in freezer. Little prawns will thaw as you break them up in your fingers and drop them in. Otherwise leave on a plate for 3 minutes until thawed. Remaining shrimp still fine for an omlet.
Shrimp give great colour to CLs and many other fish... anything with reds or golds. Mine have been off them again for a couple of months and golds have dimmed a bit.

In the North maybe try a fruit-fly maggot culture in a bit of apple mash. Should even work in the winter. Recipies on-line. If very interested call local University and see if they have a wingless culture... easier to control.

Bait-shop earth worms grown in a boiled bread/oats mash and (clean) sand mix should come out pathogen (parasite) free within a couple of days/weeks as you are controling the environmental inputs. If this works write back and let us know :)

Also try avacado, boiled egg-yolk/white, ant/termite eggs/larvae, pumpkin (stringy stuff around the seeds), peas, tinned garbanzo-beans (strikingly popular), tinned tunafish/salmon, banana, apple, squashed cockroach, cucumber, dead spiders, lobster/crab bits (no gasrlic butter necessary), chicken liver/heart, meal worms, frozen calmari squid arms... did i miss anything? And this is just the winter list.
Key word: ominivore.
And, as said above, as you get more creative with live-yard-feed get familiar with internal parasite treatments.

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