Chunk Missing From A Cory's Face

I have a 20 galon long tank with 8 various Cory Catfish and 2 Clown Loaches.

They've been living in this tank together for just over a year.

Today, I noticed one of my albino catfish is missing a large chunk of it's right face.

I was wondering...

The clown loaches are pretty big now. Could one of them have nibbled on the cory's face? Or maybe the Cory got stabbed by the now large loaches defensive spine?

Or is it more than likely that the blind cory get caught on something, ripping half it's face off?

The albino kitty is still alive, and seems to be breathing fine. It's only been one day like this.

 

Clown loaches are generally peaceful but they have some nipping power. I would guess the clown loach nipped half its face off.

 

****.... Seems like it's time to separate the loaches from the catfish....

I assume loaches don't always play well with smaller fish?

 

Its been a long time since I read about clown loaches but I remember that sometimes when stressed they could become aggressive with other bottom dwellers. It happened at my fish store once. The fish store suffered some power outages which stressed some clown loaches. The clown loaches were sharing the tank with Corydoras Paleatus juveniles (about an inch and a half) and one of the juveniles got eaten. Since a 20 gal is way too small for them and you say they are already big I think the smartest thing would be to move them to an appropiate sized tank once in a big enough tank they will probably be able to live happily with other bottom dwellers.

Remember that those loaches are schooling fish so that may have also added up with the initial stressor to really scare them and trigger their aggressive behavior.

 

Just realized this is under fresh water fish disease... Why is it here?

Can a mod move this over to beginner questions please?

 

I would really move the clown loaches to a bigger tank or give them to someone else or even your LFS. They get pretty big and as BeanFish says, a 20 gallon is really small.