Plants that will survive clown loach curiosity

[Andy Thurston]

Im going to try as many low light, big rooted plants grown in pots as i can get to find out which will survive, even though they will all show signs of clown damage. People have varied success with large clowns and plants and imo they are only sucessfull when clowns are in small groups less than 4. I also beleive clowns kept in small groups become unhappy and less active. which may be the reason for their success with plants and may also be why they rarely see their fish. I see all my clowns dailly from feeding at 6pm right through till 1-2am
Main lights off at 9pm and 0.4w worth of blue leds on till midnight.
My primary goal with this tank is clown happiness now ive achived this its time to get some plants in there, even though some people think im nuts for trying

 

[sanj]

I realise this is an old post, but the only thing I hate about clown loaches is not being able to keep them long term in a planted aqaurium. I have never seen a group of mature clown loach in an "unmolested" planted aquarium. I spoke with the partner of Emma Turner before, a lady who has a large aquarium with 30+ clown loach and some decades old. Plants get wrecked, even Anubias. 😕

It would be great to know if otherwise is true but I suspect most people have never kept the fish for long enough, they are relatively fine with plants for years, but not when they are 10"+ from what I can gather.

Shame. 😐

 

[mort]

I realise this is an old post, but the only thing I hate about clown loaches is not being able to keep them long term in a planted aqaurium. I have never seen a group of mature clown loach in an "unmolested" planted aquarium. I spoke with the partner of Emma Turner before, a lady who has a large aquarium with 30+ clown loach and some decades old. Plants get wrecked, even Anubias. 😕

It would be great to know if otherwise is true but I suspect most people have never kept the fish for long enough, they are relatively fine with plants for years, but not when they are 10"+ from what I can gather.

Shame. 😐

I have had my clowns 25 years plus and they eat any plants I try to add. I've tried everything and they strip it for fun. They were fine when young in planted tanks but as they grew so did their appetite for destruction. It's why the tank has only been bogwood for the last 15-20 years. I do add my plant trimming for them to munch on occasionally.

 

[sciencefiction]

I don't know if I said it on this post some time ago but they won't eat crinum calamistratum....it was the only plant they didn't touch but they shred everything else to bits, including the anubias. That happened only when they got older. I kept them with plants for years before and they only snapped at them from time to time.

I realise this is an old post, but the only thing I hate about clown loaches is not being able to keep them long term in a planted aqaurium.

I now keep them in an indoor pond with emersed plantation, the best ever setup...

 

[tiger15]

You can keep clown loach with plants for a while when they are small. But they eventually grow huge and powerful, and will destroy plants not for food, but to push them around to make nest. Here is an old video of my three Amego clowns that grew to 7 inch which is not even half the full grown size. I had no plants but rock piles with blanketing BBA that they wouldn’t touch, so I don’t think loaches are vegetarian. I felt unsafe to keep them with rock piles as they were powerful and frequently knock them over to make nests to sleep. But I have to admit they were cute and always hanged out with one another and often fight to occupy the same nest.