Clown Loaches & Africans WAS: LF: Clown Loach - snail problem!

[Laura]

Welcome to the forum!

There are many more appropriately sized loaches for dealing with a snail problem, but you have to ask yourself if your setup is appropriate - they tend to like softer acidic water.  Also keep in mind that loaches like company - usually groups of 4-6 as a minimum.  If your set-up isn't appropriate there are other ways of getting rid of snails  -  catch them with zucchini/cuke, film containers etc.  Zippitygirl on the forum is looking for some for her puffers

Clowns get very big - although it can take a long time, they can get to about a foot and very bulky - I also understand that large ones will play hell on your plants.  Check loaches.com for more info, but some small commonly available ones would be skunks and yoyo loaches.  A recommendation on http://www.loaches.com/species-index/botia-striata is for botia striata which you may find locally. 

"It is a great shame that many stores do not stock Botia striata as a 'standard' species, instead of its much larger cousin the clown loach. Its relatively small size and peaceful nature make it an excellent choice for most community settings."

There are lots of great LFS staff on the site who could let you know if they have them in stock.

[beowulf]

Totally agree with Laura unless you have 120g ++ and and lots of flow, as clowns love flow, they are not for you.  Read up a lot on them before making the choice.  Also loaches do not have scales so there are special rules for medicating and they are prove to ich.

[Kashif]

Thanks Laura and Beowulf for your comments.

My current setup is a 46 Gallon bowfront tank.  It is very lightly populated right now with 3 small electric yellow labs and I intend to keep it that way for a few weeks.  I believe the tank is big enough to hold a couple of clown loaches that are not too big.  Clown loaches are one of the few tropicals that do well in the pH and Hardness levels in African Cichlid tanks.  Here's an excellent article on Clown Loach compatibility with African Cichlids:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/clown_loach.php

[beowulf]

It saddens me to hear you say this.  With all due respect it is not a good idea of house clowns, or pretty much any loach, with Africans.  While you post that article, which has mistakes in it, I can counter with this one which is says these fish are not compatible.  http://www.loaches.com/articles/why-loaches-should-not-be-kept-with-malawi-cichlids  Your 46g would last a couple of years at most, then what?  You have just got them to survive in a water that they are not use to and now you need to move them and they will have to get use to another kind of water?  Please think this over before making this move.

[Laura]

With apologies for the well intentioned thread jacking, I recalled one of the cichlid keepers here mentioning their fish eating snails, so I did a google search for snail eating cichlids and found this: (please keep in mind that I know doodly squat about african cichlids)

This one cites yellow labs:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/4742/snail_faq.html

Pseudotropheus Melanochromis
http://www.drhelm.com/aquarium/snails.html

African cichlids
http://hcgs.unh.edu/Staff/carleton/pdfs/CarletonCichlidVision.pdf

here's another, but the names 'fin biters' and 'scale eaters' are disturbing 
http://malawicichlids.com/mw01100.htm#moll

Unless you're really set on the clowns it may be worth starting a discussion in 'Freshwater' to get the feedback from our very talented African keeper/breeders.  It could be that there's a cichlid which can fit into your presently understocked tank, and take care of your snails at the same time

[beowulf]

I also did some further searching and here is a fish that can live in the water needs of you cichilds and will eat snail while remaining much smaller then a clown loach at 6 inches.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=95  And Fender has one for sale.

[NjOyRiD]

i have one clown loahc and 3 skunk botia for sale, this is the dream team, they cleared out the tank in a week

[loutre]

I agree with beowulf, I personally have a synodontis multipunctatus in my tank with african cichlid and is doing a great job at keeping the snail population in check. The only problem is that they are usually more expensive fish to buy (around 40$). I saw some at BigAls in kanata a couple of weeks ago.

[greenthumb]

Hi,

I'm encountering a snail problem.  I've read that clown loaches are a good way to naturally eliminate snails.  -Kashif.

Hi Kashif,

I must say I also agree with Laura. I once had the same problem and considered clowns but then realized my set-up wasn't big enough. After much digging around I finally located some biota striata, which appeared to be the best solution after doing some research.

However, the funny thing is that in the end I didn't purchase them because by that time the snail problem had resolved itself. I had removed some by trapping them in a container with boiled spinach. Others I just crushed against the glass and the fish ate them (most fish love to eat snails if you crush the shells). Once the population was down, it just seemed to stay that way and regulated itself. But if I were to go with loaches I'd go with the smaller variety.

Anyways...good luck with it...just thought I'd pass that on, since this discussion all sounded very familiar to me.

[Laura]

Thanks to PFG for moving over our well meaning thread jacking  

Now that we're here, can our very knowlegable african keepers let us know what african cichlids eat snails?  I am genuinely curious as on different forums I've seen posts from folks looking to keep clowns and africans together.

Oneology, Pegasus, APW - hoping to hear from you (apologies to anyone I missed) 

[Jesse]

 I have 4 clown loaches in my 55g. While they do eat snails, I highly advise against getting clowns for your tank for a few reasons. The first is they DO get too big. Mine have a home for when they get too big, although we may be setting up a 120g in the future. They do get big and are very active, so space is required. The ones I have are very young. The second thing is since they have no scales, rocks can be bad. I used to have some nice rocks in my tank, but took them out because they were cutting the fish. Africans like alot of rock-work (if im not mistaken), so that could be an issue. Africans can be aggressive so they could get damaged that way aswell. Clowns do prefer lower PH levels, and lots of plants and also open swimming space, so an african tank is not an overly great choice for a setup. Another thing is current, they like it. Yes, I realize I have them with angelfish, which dont like an overall fast flowing tank. The outflow of my fluval 404 is at the bottom of the tank, somewhere the angels never went before I had the loaches, so I decided to try it out. Seems to be working well for me. As everyone has noted, clowns would be an unwise choice for your african tank. Try some of the other loaches maybe, or synos again as others have said.

[oenology]

In my malawi tanks I never have a snail problem, even MTS. However, in my tang tanks I usually end up with HUGE populations of MTS. The worst tank was the one housing among other things 3 syno. multipunctatus - maybe they didn't read the instruction manual or they just can't contend with the hard pointed MTS shells.

[pegasus]

Yes same as Oenology, mbunas are probably eating the very small MTS. My Synodontis petricola will never touch them. Sorry don't know any Africans that will.

[beowulf]

Kind of weird because from what I have read they seem to do a good job and are at least made for the same water parameters.

[RoxyDog]

there not a snail to be seen in my mbuna tank.  I even put some bigger mts from my 12gal into the 77gal to hopefully get them to stir up gravel.  I haven't seen them since.   

[Laura]

What about pest snails like pond and sm ramshorns - would your africans eat those?
MTS have really tough shells, but the pest snails are much softer.

[darkdep]

I can tell you that I've opened up canisters on my tanks to find them filled with pond snails; but not a one can be found in my African tanks.  So, I propose, that they get eaten as soon as they appear. 

[beowulf]

How do africans eat the snails?  Do they eat right into the shell creating a hole?  This would be different then the loaches method.

[loutre]

It is funny because I have MTS in my african community and lots get eaten (empty shells left on the substrate being the proof). I always assumed my synodontis was responsible for these because I had read somewhere that they did eat snails. But I never saw him actually eating them, so it could be another one of my fish . As far as I can tell there is no hole in the shell and it looks like the snail has been sucked out. Either I am the happy owner of a snail eating synodontis or there is another culprit. I will try to determine who could be responsible...

[pegasus]

You all seen pond snail egg clotches, but did you ever seen MTS's? Snail egg clotches just dont' survive in an African tank.