I have 10 clown loach, all about 3 to 4 inches. The were obtained in 2's and 3's when small and their sizes vary from 3 to 4 inches. I have 4 in a discus tank and they seem fine. Its the 6 in my general cichlid tank that are the worry. Of the 6 in there, 5 seem to be losing the darkness of their black bands. The blackness comes back at feed time tho. Anyone any idea what is causing this. They are not on the receiving end of aggression and have been in the cichlid tank for about 3 months


Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 , nitrates vary but never over 40ish

Discus tank temperature is 29 and cichlid tank is 26/27


Discus tank gets maggots, prawns but mostly discus cichlid pellets and flake


Cichlid tank gets maggots, prawns but mostly cichlid pellets and pond pellets(cheaper)


Anyone any ideas

I have got four clown loaches, two big ones, and two small ones. One of my week clown loaches is so much paler than the other, it's black is really pale compared to the other one. So, it seems to be something that happens, I shouldn't worry if I was you.

ok thanks for that. Clown loach are my second favourite fish

I totally agree, clown Loach delightful little fish. They can live for a very long time as well.

Don't worry about the bands fading on your Clown loach - I have 6 in my Juwel 190 - 2 of which are over 10" long and they have faded - Clown loaches are delightful fish when kept together and would recommed that you keep a minimum of 6, as they do not do so well in smaller mumbers. Clown loaches are also nocturnal and don't therefore like to come out in the day - and also they love plenty of hiding places. They love to be fed on Cucumber wedges or Courgette wedge as well as sinking pellets and wafers, and also once a week I feed them with a couple of prawns - this is very good for them but only feed them this once a week as it will mess the water up a bit. Clown loaches are also Stress Heads and do not appreciate you disturbing them by poking around in their hiding places. Leave them alone and you won't go wrong.
Keep your water temp at about 28 degrees C and you shouldn't have a problem with whitespot.
Also Clown loaches like a clean environment - I myself run an Eheim 2128 external filter, a Juwel compact internal filter which comes with the Juwel 190, 2 Fluvel powerheads, a UV sterliser and the Deltec MC500 protein Skimmer with Ozoniser to keep my water clean and sterile. Now you don't need to to these extremes but I have a heavily populated aquarium so I keep the water circulating and moving quite rapidly. Clown loaches do not like a build up of Nitrate either. When I do partial water changes I use 50/50 mix tap water and rain water which I microwave at a gallon at a time for 8 minutes each gallon, this then placed in a 4 gallon container which is then heated to 28 degrees c for a week. Also in this container is an airstone to aerate the water. I also place 3 drops of WS4 and a teaspoon of tonic salt in the water. This helps to kill of any bacteria such as whitespot. Obviously I use a dechlorinator as well. In my case I also dose the water for 20 mins with ozone and stand for 1hr prior to changing my water. The Active Carbon will then remove the WS4 in the main filteration once the water has been added to my aquarium. Hope this helps as my Clowns are very happy Clowns - hence the size they have grown to in my aquarium. Rgrds Nige AKA Nippienige

That is a lot of effort. More than i put in for my discus tank. I heard clown loach get to 12 inches in the wild but rarely over 6 inches in tanks. So if you have 2 that are 10 inches then maybe the effort has paid off