clown loachs + fry = ??

[rocketboy]

alright so i have a 10g tank with about 20 fry that are only about 1 cm long. this tank is getting over run by snails (their everywhere)now that i have the fry in there . ill be putting cucumber in to help cut down on snails but was thinking of putting my 3 clown loaches(1 1/2inches) to give them a nice snack.would that be a problem? i don't want my fry to be frightend on or eaten.

[beowulf]

Clowns should not eat fry. What are your long term plans for the clowns?  Don't forget that they reach 8-10 inches easy and prefer a decent amount of flown in their water.  There are better ways to get rid of the snails or if you must go with loaches you can get much smaller ones that are also snail eaters like zebra or Burmese loaches which reach only 4-5 inches.

[rocketboy]

i have the clowns in a 130g,i was just thinking of putting them in the 10g for a few days to munch on snails(from what i read they love snails). i dont want to completly remove all the snails, i just want to cut down. so i was thinking by putting cucumber in everynight and removing it in the morning with the clowns would do the trick.

[MikeM]

If you want to keep a small population of snails in there, you might not want to put in the loaches.   My 75 G was crawling with pond snails, but I haven't seen one since about 2 days after introducing the loaches.  The snails might be good at hiding quickly, but judging from the graveyard of empty snail shells I vacuumed off the substrate, the clowns are very efficient.  Definitely throw some of the ones you collect into your big tank for the loaches though, if you've never seen them go to town on a snail, it's really a lot of fun.  They'll play with the empty shells for a while too.

[beowulf]

I would let the snails go and pick and few off every now and then as a treat for the clowns.  I have started doing this for mine and they love the snails when the get them.  As mentioned the bottom of the tank ends up looking like a snail graveyard with all the empty shells!!!