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Clown Loaches lost bright orange coloration

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:13 am
by athlete3344
Hey All,

Ive been looking for an answer and have failed in researching it so maybe someone can provide an answer.

Background:
55g tank
6 Clown loaches - 4-5 years 5-7"
3 Clown loaches - new additions 1-2"
8 Tiger Barbs
1 Rainbow Shark
1 Clown Pleco

Ive had 6 Clown Loaches for around 4-5 years now, they have grown from 1" to 5-7" in that time period. The play regularly and are pretty friendly, especially since I added Tiger Barbs to the 55g about a year or two ago (before then were a crazy amount of mollies). One thing I noticed is the bright orange the older CLs used to have has faded over time. In the tank are a few pieces of driftwood but a lack of plants, the loaches seem to eat everything/destroy whatever I put in there. I feed normally shrimp pellets and algae tablets with bloodworms on weekends usually. Is there a way I can change the tank to where their orange color comes back as bright as it used to be? Ive seen loaches twice the size of mine and they were much brighter.

One of my filters recently kicked the bucket and I plan on building a sump with a pump in the 800-1000gph range. This will most likely occur in the next couple of weeks.

Feel free to ask me any questions and I am open to any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Re: Clown Loaches lost bright orange coloration

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:06 pm
by vealboy
I wish I had an answer for you, I have 2 CLs that are not as old, and their orange looks a bit less orange than before. I thought it was my imagination, but maybe it's not.

Re: Clown Loaches lost bright orange coloration

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:20 pm
by monicalovefish
I've looked around and some forums mention that they sometimes loose color when they are nervous. Did you make big changes to your tank? I'm thinking if you used to have lots of plants, maybe removed some hidey holes...they could be a bit stressed out. I'd try to give them some places to hide and maybe add a bit of variety to their diet like blood worms, algae wafers, maybe Hikari pellets? I use the small carnivore ones and they seem to like them a lot. If you removed a lot of hidey holes and upped your lights...could be that too.

If you recently added the new fish they may be reacting to them as they aren't used to them yet.

Monica

P.S. Can you give us an idea of what changes you've made recently? We could all theorize as to what's causing the sudden loss of color.