Very nice find. Good on you to find them a home so that they can live their long lives together.
I have a shool of denison barbs/roseline sharks and a school of SAEs that all tend to swim together. The younger loaches are almost always amongst them, and the 3 species readily mix up in one big group of fish just swimming rapidly together. It works really well. I used to have livebearers before with the loaches but that didn't work.
The denison barbs and SAEs are very active fish, suitable for clown loaches but not so much temperature wise. You need great aeration if you are to mix those, as SAEs and denison barbs come from cooler waters, meaning higher in oxygen, which is the important part if they're kept in warmer water. Mine is at 26C, the optimal temperature for clown loaches.
SAEs may not be the most beautiful fish, especially in comparison to denison barbs, but their behaviour is clown loach like. They are extremely curious fish, very friendly, and the lot would line up on my palm eating pellets or just nibble my arms. They seem to grow slower and smaller than the denison barbs but are as entertaining as clown loaches if you ignore the drab grey colours. They get on extremely well with the denison barbs as well as the clown loaches.
The denison barbs on another hand, are extremely beautiful fish. I also had a very odd encounter two months back when one of mine changed colour completely to yellow and black strips, looking like a clown loach. See pictures below, ha, ha.. As of now, she's back to a denison colour. I've no idea why it changed colour like that and no-one I asked had ever heard or seen such thing...Either way, it wanted to be a clown loach
Older/bigger loaches are not exactly nocturnal as they calm down at night but they resent bright lights and they resent noise too. Mine are out all the time when the lights are off, probably "getting up" as early as 5am and going to bed around 11pm or so...
They'd be out all over the place until the light turns on and I think they just can't wait for those lights to go off in the evening..They start swimming in and out the caves around lights off time.They know very well when that is...Like every other animal, they do like routine and set hours for lights and feeding too....If they expect to be fed, they'be out waiting. every day around the same time no matter what..
I have a light that is only aimed at the plants growing out of the aquarium which stays for longer,. It doesn't light up the tank much but enough for me to see them well, and that light doesn't bother them. They do come out for food though, lights or no lights...although with some sort of jerky/nervous movements
When the light is subdued, they're fearless, bite my fingers at food time, etc..
When small/young, clown loaches have no fear of light and don't get spooked easily at all but that really depends as the first group of loaches I bought about 6 years ago, which I still have, were just a very nervous bunch and used to hate my guts. They've calmed down big time since.....but it took ages. Every other small loach I bought, I managed to hand feed while in quarantine and they remained extremely friendly as of today still. I have about 4 that are up to 1 year old, the rest 9 are quite older.
Wow, I am tired of typing
The best of luck with your fish. I am sure you're going to enjoy them big time
For the laugh, my loach wannabe denison barb
Normal coloured one
