Clown Loach Photos

Please use this topic to post your Clown Loach photos. I'll leave it stickied so it appears at the top of the posts.

Thanks,
Mike

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Please use your own photos, and not material from the internet.

Please post your photos as attachments, rather than links.

While your compliments on the photos are really appreciated, text-only posts will be removed after a while to keep the gallery pictures-only. If there is a discussion you do not want to loose, please start it again in a separate thread.

Thanks,
Armadillo

 

We had Honey Dew melon today so I tried a piece on the Clowns. this was the result.
Carol

 

My Clowns

Here's my 2 guys!

 

This is my hubbys clown

 

my 2 clown loaches

 

Anthia and friends are 17 years old.

Hi, these are pics of my favourite Clown Loach "Anthia" and her friends. They live in my 90 uk gallon. I purchased the loaches in 1995 at several different shops when they were probably already 1 year old.
















"Anthia", the biggest in all the pictures, is 8". The smallest "Mobo" was bought first and is 6". There are six altogether and they shoal together.

I want to come on here and celebrate with you when they reach 20 years old.

 

Hi, Merry Christmas and a Clown Loachy New Year!

I want to add to the pictures of my 18 year old Clown Loaches (18 years old on New Year's Day). This is to show the effect of my natural gravel on the colour of my Clown Loaches.

 

The Clown Loaches are now 18 years 8 months old and I give them careful attention including two feeds a day and weekly water changes.

They seem more robust and healthy than ever.

The colours are really vibrant and I'm sure they are benefitting from my work this time last year when I decided to fit a full powerhead-driven undergravel filter system and disconnected my external filtration.

I did this to reduce the chances of losing my fish and to protect my family from flooding as three people I know have suffered this with the loss of their fish (one person had to live in alternative accomodation while their house was dried out).

 

A few of my clowns. 6 months old.

 

My Clown Loaches have now reached the landmark age of 20 years. Anthia is the leader of the shoal at 9 inches in length. Here she is:




Below is Tiama, also female, 8 inches:




And below is Romio, the largest male at six inches:




I've been looking forward to posting this since I first joined Fishlore in 2008.

 

Finally got around to taking some pics of my clowns. I have had them for like 4 months

Sent from my QMV7A using Fish Lore Aquarium Fish Forum mobile app

 

Just got 2 clowns today from my LFS. He got them for me (I'd gotten 2 small ones there a couple months ago). I was shocked to see how big they were! I'd say a good 4-5 inches. My other 2 have grown, but are still 2-2.5 inches. Seems like they are getting along though! These big guys aren't quite as active, but they are probably still getting adjusted.

Little guys:




Big guys chilling in the driftwood:

 

Hi, I'm adding some recent photos of my Clown Loaches which are now over 21 years of age.

I bought them in January 1995 and they were probably at least a year old at the time of purchase.

 

Happy New Year Everybody!

All my 6 Clown Loaches are still with me.

They are now all 23 years old.

I managed this pic of Anthia (my biggest) tonight.
The eye of the fish looks bright because I needed to use flash to pick out the numbering on the ruler.

 

Happy New Year Everybody!

My 6 Clown Loaches are still with me.

They are now all 24 years old.




6 x Clown Loaches all twenty-four years of age on 01.01.18, largest is 11.5", aquarium measures 6' x 18" x 18" 400l/110usgal.

 

Hello everyone just wanted to show off my clown loaches
these

 

I just figured out how to post pics. Here's a funny picture of my pleco and clown loach hiding under the same fake driftwood:

Here's three of them in that same piece of driftwood:


Here's their three mouths sticking out of that same piece:



Those were from last year I think. I'll upload current ones when I'm on my phone.

Edit. Two pics from a three weeks ago. Bad angle through dirty glass but I didn't want to risk going in front and startling them.

I have to look through some old prints to figure out when I got these. They are for sure 20+ years old. I either got them in 1994, 1995 or 1996.

 

Please do get the correct date. It is important because there are so very few old Clown Loaches besides yours and mine that have been reared from youngsters.

This is despite 50 million being exported annually.

Now many old Clown Loaches are being imported from the wild, I assume from Sumatra. These are very long and thin and most unlike the well-built captive reared fish like ours.

 

My baby clown loach

 

Here is a picture of most of my guys ..


They are in my 180g and have been with me for 11-16 years now .

 

I joined Fishlore ten years ago and at that time looked forward to celebrating my Clown Loaches 20th birthdays.

Amazingly, I still have all my six Clown Loaches today and they are now 25 years old.




I know their age because I purchased them in January 1995 when they were 1 year old.

Mine have had no diseases since surviving the whitespot they originally came with.

So these are lucky fish. I have calculated that over a billion Clown Loaches have been exported from their native countries since I purchased mine.

Here are my two girls. Tiama (right) is 10" total length and is joined by Anthia (left) who is 11.5" total length.

Anthia only grew larger than Tiama in her later years. From an early age they were always evenly matched and had little battles often. However, they always sat side by side after their trials of strength. Their names were derived by using the letters in the latin name for Clown Loach which is Chromobotia macracanthus.

 

That's one big loach !
Here are some of mine playing in front of tank ,except the sleeper !

 

You need to fish that dead one out LOL!

 

My wife still asks me "are you sure he's sleeping ? " while 8 others just roll over him back and fourth !
I say you want me to wake him up in his own house ?

 

Heh. I still get worried when I see them do it in the middle of the tank when though I know they do that.

Redshark:
Love your loaches. Seeing your posts on your clown loaches is partially responsible for me getting more serious about the hobby in spring of last year.

 

Thanks man. Its good to have a few of us Clown Loach keepers around we can help each other do a better job.

 

Happy New Year to everyone on Fishlore. Thanks for all the discussion about tropical fish during 2019. It was great fun and I learnt a lot.

I'm up before 7am on New Year's Day to continue my annual ritual of posting a pic of my Clown Loach, Anthia, who is now 26 years old!

I have 6 x Clown Loaches all twenty-six years of age on 01.01.20, purchased when 1 year old on Jan 1995, largest is Anthia 11.5", aquarium measures 6' x 18" x 18" 400l/110usgal/90ukgal.

They still appear healthy though the stripes are fading and splitting on a couple of them.

I still manage to come up with ways to improve the way I keep them in order to benefit their health. This year I found a way to stop the bubble stream from the powerhead venturI reducing over time.

Here is Anthia, 11.5". She is the boss. She is watching me as I type this as she is looking forward to her Krill and Bloodworm!

 

My clown loach hiding (they do come out when hungry. There are 3 of them in the val right now but this is all i'm allowed to see - they aren't tiny around 4.5 to 5.5 inches long and rather heavy body still they manage to (almost) totally hide. The 5th hangs out in the coconut shell by itself most of the time and sometime number 3 hangs out in the back right corner (this is the front left corner). So why post this almost useless picture - because this stuff is growing against the glass and I'm amazed that multiple non-small fishes can almost totally hide in it. I only noticed because he likes to wag his tail making motion which catches my eye.

 

Sometimes I think they are watching me watch TV. They relax on the swords.

 

Happy New Year!

Obo is male, six inches long and 27 years old.




Obo is the first Clown Loach I purchased in January 1995 as a yearling. I rang to check that Clown Loaches were in stock and was going to purchase a whole group. However, their relatively dull colouration put me off so I just purchased one. I then found more typically coloured fish and purchased the rest of my group in other shops during the same month.

6 x Clown Loaches all twenty-seven years of age on 01.01.2021, largest 11.5", 2f4m, aquarium 6' x 18" x 18" 400 ltr = 110 US gal.

 

Redshark:
I haven't been on this forum much. Im glad that your Loaches are all doing well.

My Loaches are doing fine as well. I lost three rainbowfish in 2020 from my display but my clown Loaches and pleco are fine.

I noticed my elder twenty something male has two similarities.to your fish. His tail seems to be about the same hue and his front black has faded a little like yours seems to be. This is compared to the tail color and black bars of my younger Loaches (had them for 2.5+ years).

Thanks for the update and pic.

 

I am curious about the size of your male. I currently have 5 clown loaches in my 120 and at least 3 of them seem that large or larger (I've had them for 1.2 years). My intention is to get 3 more (total 8) when i move and have a 450 gallon tank.

 

He is small compared to the biggest female.

 

Tiny compared to her - does she bully him?
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This reminds me vaguely I think there are three different clown loaches which have different markings and size relative to each other. Do you know if the two are actually different types of clown loaches (I use type because vaguely I think they are the same species).
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Here is one article that talks about them:
Clown Loach Coloration & Marking Variations — Loaches Online

View attachment 754459

He is small compared to the biggest female.

 

Tiny compared to her - does she bully him?
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My males like to do the "shadowing" behavior with my big female. One or two of them will press themselves against her and swim with her.

The only aggression I ever see is between similar sized Loaches. I have two males that are about the same size that are the ones I'll see turn grey and bite at each other occasionally.

My big female has only turned grey in one instance and that's when all the other Loaches were trying to grab a wafer she was eating one time. The wafer was in a corner and they were all sort of pressing against her and she turned grey.

I think redshark has said that his two biggest females would turn grey and fight for dominance.

I think my female is smaller than redsharks females. You can still see the size difference in this pic I took the other day. All the ones in front are about the same size. The elder male is is one the far left. The big alpha female is obviously in the back. I think one of the ones in the group.is also a female. Hard to see in the pic but she has surpassed the male on the left (who again is twenty something years old) in just 2.5 years of ownership.

Glass is dirty but you can see the fish:

 

A pic of mine:


Just moved them to the African build.
So far so good.

 

Wake me latter!!

 

Right now mine are not picture friendly - 2 of them like to hide side by side in this 7 inch tube that is only big enough for one. Most of the time their tails stick out the end but i guess they feel safe as long as their eyes are covered. One of these days they are going to realize that two is one too many in there.

 

You’ll notice that when the tube starts swimming around the tank .

 

Tiny compared to her - does she bully him?

Clown Loaches range over a vast area so there is bound to be variation in different localities.

I've no idea where my Loaches are specifically from, but they aren't going to be shipped from Obo's locality too often. The whole tankful of several hundred were this colour.

I've heard via exporters that the Sumatran Clown Loaches can be paler like this and the Kalimantan Clown Loaches are more typically orange coloured.

There is a pecking order and the biggest get more food by pushing others out of the way but it doesn't go further than that.

He can get the upper hand if he wants to mate because he is more manouverable. Many fish exibit this behaviour where the male swims upside the female and sticks close, shadowing her every move. But no eggs are laid by my Clowns.

The Clown Loaches are very sociable and even after two have had a test of strength they sit next to each other again soon afterwards. Its always been this way.