My 12 year old clown loach has been alone for about 3 months - his lifelong mate sadly died. Knowing they prefer to be in groups, I have been planning to get him a new mate or two when I upgrade to my new 6' tank (which will be in about 2 weeks).... but....... By luck, I found a similarly sized clown loach at my LFS - I couldn't resist as they are relatively hard to find at a decent size.

So, I brought the new guy home. My old clown loach has been terrorizing the new one with endless chasing and what appears to be nipping. The new clown loach is frantically trying to escape with no avail.... has tried to squeeze himself into hiding places for some refuge; only to have the old clown loach flush him out.

Both loaches coloring is "normal" - not pale, grey or overly bright.

Good news is the O's could care less about the new fish (at least for now)

Is this normal? is there hope that this dominance/chasing will stop and they'll be buddies? or should I take him back and just stick with one?

sorry, no experience with multiple clown, thus could not give comments.
it is just through this site that i learn clown are suppose to be in group
of 3 or more. oh yeah...may be that is the tricks,...you need one more..
to confuse the dominant whom to chase.

Unfortunately I lost all four of my clown Loach not long ago, two of them were over seven inches. I never really had a problem with my Loach's fighting, occasionally they would have a go at each other , I remember one occasion the fighting lasted several hours and then abated and they went back to being friends again.

I suppose we would give you the same advice as we would with Oscars, see how things go and if it is quite obvious that one Loach is taking a bashing and injuries are being caused, you may have to take it back to the shop. Just make sure you give them plenty of hiding places, mine used to have a great big plant pot that they would enjoy huddling up inside.

Apart from that, I haven't really got anything else to offer

My oscar ate my 3 clowns... They did not grow fast enough. I absolutely love big clowns! the 12 year old must be amazing!






LOL FATTEH

OFL wrote:


sorry about your loss. When I lost the first from my pair, it was probably the first time I was truly sad about a fish passing.

I wouldn't worry at all. clowns fight/scrap all the time. I can't tell if its fighting or fun but mine case each other all the time. they do very little damage (not visible)so I think its play. I had a parrot that went head to head with my large clown and it acted very different than it dose with the other loach's. mine change colour to a very pale "white" show there slit under the eyes and bite/case/scrap with each other everyday.

Foxlarocks wrote:



lol those fish look cool i want some now lol

My brother has kept clowns for many years. He recommends that you never have less than 7 in a group. Believe me when I say that you will notice the difference - they all hang out and play in a group. A massive difference from just having 3 or 4...

good advice. they seemed to have settled down - now swimming around together (instead of #1 chasing/nipping at #2). Hopefully it was just establishment of the pecking order (or with fish is it called "swimming order" - LOL) Hopefully they'll be a nice pair. Hmmm... to add more? it maybe an option! they are neat fish - very active. I've seen videos of tanks with 20-30 and it's a sight to see. They seem to get along well with the O's (as long as they're big enough!).

iv got 6 clowns in my tank and they all stay together and gets along with my o they do look great together as i seen a post on here with lots together and i just had to get some more to go wiith the one i had

Goob_Scooper wrote:


I had 2 for about 6yrs+ but then added 3 more. they now play a lot more. since adding the arow they have come to life even more. I think cos the are fast active river fish they fit better with fast moving other fish but do work ok with oscars.

thought I'd give an update - incase others experience this.

The chasing/nipping/general harrassing lasted about 1 day. After about a day, they decided to be buddies and now they swim around together in harmony - or they will both go about their business and swim around on their own. They even sleep together - which is kinda cute.

Guess I'll account for it as figuring out the pecking order or sorting out their differences..... better lucky than good:)