Juvenile Loaches are a terror

[jmiller]

Hello,

I have raised 4 clowns for the past 3 years and been very pleased with them.

I bought 4 more juvenile loaches a few months ago and they are very aggressive. I keep them in a community tank with angels and other varieties. The juvenile loaches will tear the angels fins and chase them all over the tank. Is this a bad batch of clowns or will they grow out of this terrorizing behavior. Should I return them to the store? Some clowns are more aggressive than the others. One clown in particular will target my largest angel from across the tank, swim over, and bite it's tail like a pit-bull shaking a rope.

Thanks jennifer

[Emma Turner]

Hi Jennifer,

What size aquarium are you keeping them in? (volume and dimensions).

Emma

[jmiller]

My tank is 70 gallons, I don't know the dimensions.

[Emma Turner]

I don't know the dimensions

?????

Without knowing the footprint and height of the tank, it is difficult to say whether it is suitable for housing both species together. It would be expected that loaches would 'whisker' the long fins of the angel fish if the tank wasn't spacious enough, they are naturally curious. I know 70 gallons is not that small, but it may not be quite large enough to expect the two species to live together in harmony.

Emma

[jmiller]

Thanks for getting back to me........

I guess my question was, do clowns go through a juvenile stage where they are more aggresive? I did not experience this with my other clown loaches that I got 3 years ago. I have always kept clowns and angels together.

My tank is very large, lots of room to swim, lots of plants, and driftwood. I don't even have allot of fish in the tank.

Do you think this aggresive behavior will change as they mature, or will it only get worse?

Thanks Jennifer

[Emma Turner]

Clown loaches are not what you'd call an aggressive species. But that doesn't mean they're not boisterous (there's a difference), which is most likely what you are seeing with yours. Roughly how big are your clowns, and what sort of size are the angels?

Emma

[jmiller]

Hello,

Since I already have 4 clowns I know the boisterous behavior that they exhibit. This is different.........The new clowns are aggressive and rip/shred parts of fins off of other fish like pit-bulls (I am not kidding). My new loaches are about an inch from head to tail and started out very skinny, not the plump ones that I am used to. My largest angel in the 70 gallon is 4 inches around and the smallest is around 2 inches.

Hope that helps......

[Emma Turner]

I guess my question was, do clowns go through a juvenile stage where they are more aggresive?

I've never observed any aggression towards other species in 14 years of keeping them. When they get bigger, they do tend to become a bit more reclusive during daylight hours, but at dawn and dusk they are still very boisterous with each other.

Some people have reported similar behaviour between Botia kubotai and angel fish, but I am of the opinion that given enough room, they should co-exist perfectly well. Here is an example of a tank we have at work which houses angel fish and many species of Botia including clowns and B. kubotai. It is 8ft long and extra tall - we never have any aggression problems in there:


Emma

[mikev]

They killed and dismembered a barb here.

It was not a case of aggression per se, the barbs managed to get the clowns take sides in their private war: two smaller male barbs were hiding with clowns from the attacking dominant male. Well, he ended up very dead, and I had to quickly remove the other two barbs, since the clowns now had a clear idea that barbs represent a danger and have to be killed. The clowns at the time were 2.5"-3".

That group of barbs was males only, with the obvious implications. I later had no problem keeping a balanced larger group of barbs with clowns.

ASAIK, angels occassionally conflict between themselves too, so something similar might have happened.

[shari2]

You did say you saw the clowns actually grab a fin and shake it like a pit bull...

If all of the small ones exhibit this behavior especially one in particular, what is different about these from the others? I have read in some of my more recent disease searching that fish which are suffering from parasites will sometimes get agressive. Did you quarantine these 4 before they went into the tank? Do you know if they are wild caught or farm bred? Did you treat for internal parasites?

I know when I don't feel well I am cranky. Never shook anyone like a pit bull, though I have been known to bark or bite...

In any case, if you are sure the water is not the problem, and everything else seems well: fish are feeding, growing, acting normally (other than the agression) then it is either you have a batch of 'killer' clowns, or they are agressive in response to something that is irritating them.

[midman]

I keep my clown's with 2 angel fish and they have never bothered them, only to keep them out of the way when on the feeder. The only fish that do cause a slight problem for the Angel's are my 2 gourami's, they tend to nibble a bit. My tank is much smaller than yours at 55 gallons with an overall height of 18 inches and they all seem happy.

[crazie.eddie]

I had clown loaches and angels for several years. The only experience I had was one of the smallest loaches was eating the scales off of one of my angels. I was alarmed to see the angels with some missing scales, until I saw the loach actually approach the angel and getting the scales. The strange thing was, the angel just let it happen and it never really tried to run or hide. I eventually seperated the loach into another tank for several weeks and let the angel recover it's lost scales. I moved the loach back and observed. Since then, it has never touched the angel. In fact, both the angels and loaches get along fine.