Clown loach growth thread.

[esoxlucius]

Guess ive decided to stretch out these updates. This is probably the last youll see of them in this tank, new home should be ready by this summer. I had a slight scare with what appeared to be anchorworms but they seemed to have disappeared quickly after i added salt to the tank 3 lbs per 100g for a few weeks.

That's a nice sized group you have there. Gotta love these guys. John had it right when he referred to them as "iconic". That's exactly what they are, and more.

I doubt I'll be buying any more fish for my tank now, I'm just going to let nature take it's course and I expect, in a good few years time, that all I'll have left is my group of clowns. They'll outlive everything in my tank....including me more than likely!!

 

[Backfromthedead]

That's a nice sized group you have there. Gotta love these guys. John had it right when he referred to them as "iconic". That's exactly what they are, and more.

I doubt I'll be buying any more fish for my tank now, I'm just going to let nature take it's course and I expect, in a good few years time, that all I'll have left is my group of clowns. They'll outlive everything in my tank....including me more than likely!!

I havent felt the urge to expand much these days either. The loaches occupy 90% of my fishkeeping time, the other 10% allocated to my garage stock tank with a handful of random fish.

lately ive been noticing that almost every loach has at least one unique marking or trait that differentiates it from the others. Iconic is a great way to explain it. They are gorgeous fish but their antics and quirkiness are what makes them special imo.

Ive become quite attached.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Well its been several months, they all moved to a 400g stock tank with rest of my random tropical fish. They are in no hurry, fingerling loaches lol.

They spend far too much time playing, begging for food, and dancing when they should be growing.

 

[esoxlucius]

All good things come to those that wait. In the case of clown loach growth though, it's wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and Zzzzzzzzz! Lol.

Gotta love em though.

I purchased my first group on November 14th 2015. They were around an inch and a half apiece, skinny little critters.

The biggest out of that original group is about 7" now. A really fat female.

 

[Morti]

We got a dozen tiny clowns in 1994 and they were so small they spent most of their time behind the filter which had a cutout just big enough for the power lead to come out off (unfortunately it had the cutout on both sides and the one not in use is where the clowns snuck in). Fast forward to today and we still have 5, with the others passing over the last few years. I can't remember the growth over that time frame but we had get to over a foot and several around the foot length. The hierarchy was easy to see as they were like russian dolls with a step down in size as the fish was less dominate, to only 6" or so for the bottom rung.
It's interesting that when a more dominate fish passed you could see a growth spurt in the others and that 6" reached about 8". I'm guessing the size difference will be less marked in a larger group.

They were a real pain to get going I remember but once they got chunky they became bomb proof and haven't caused a problem ever again. I'm still enjoying them and their open behaviour hasn't changed as the group has shrunk but they still trick me with their upsidedown sleeping/death pose, almost daily.

 

[esoxlucius]

They were a real pain to get going I remember but once they got chunky they became bomb proof

This is very true. They are amongst the most fragile of fish when you get them, typically around 1-2". But once they become established I'd put them in the extremely hardy category.

My big female is the dominant one and none of the others, some also female, don't seem to be getting near her in size. It's almost as if she's controlling the packs growth.

The lying on their side playing dead characteristic doesn't seem to be something they grow out of. It used to scare the hell out of me before I knew any better, lol.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Here they are gathered in one of their rare calm moments. The rock is about 8-9" across, so my largest few are maybe close to 5" TL at a little over 3 years estimated age. Lots of estimates in that last sentence lol, but the best comparison I can give is that some of the loaches appear larger than the full grown pictus cats at this time.

The chalceus hovers in solidarity.


It's worth noting that I'm not seeing many "stragglers" anymore in terms of growth. They all seem to be keeping a constant, if not necessarily quick, pace. The smaller, younger wave seems to be closing the gap with the others.

I also have noticed that some of them which once had odd or unusual pigment blotches or marks seem to have faded or gone away and back into a normal type pattern. It was 3 of them from my buddy's tank that joined over a year ago that had a sort of reddish-black patch on their flanks--gone now though.