little snails everywhere - Page 2

Tommy Gun · 11-28-2006, 05:41 PM

Three clown loaches would be fine and can live in a thirty gallon tank for quite a while in my opinion. When you are at the LFS, try to look for a group of them that are colored nicely and appear to 'school' (or shoal actually) well together. They can and will change the intensity of their colors pretty quickly and easily, so just find the ones that look well in the tank and do not be discouraged once they are in the bag or when you first put them in your tank since they will probrably be very dull looking and can almost turn white.

I also suggest adding them to your tank with the lights off and give them a hiding place in which all of them can 'huddle' together. They will most likely be shy and reclusive at first, but over time they will perk up and be more visible. If you have some fish in your tank that appear to have an area 'staked out' or that they defend (territories), do your best to change things in the tank for a while to confuse the current inhabitants and disturb any territories that are established.

Clown loaches are not completely defenseless however, they do have a sharp 'spike' underneath their eyes. This means two things to you...First, try to watch for any of your current fish who want to pick a fight and Second, be VERY careful if you want to put them in your tank using a net since they can get tangled in it easily.

Lastly, if you use any aquarium salt in your tank, reduce your doses by half and maybe skip a couple until your clown loaches get acclimated to your tank fully.

wolf_eyed · 10-03-2007, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarah84

I had a massive snail problem in my 10 gallon, and it was too small to put Clown loaches in..
so I put 1 Kuhli loach (although they should be kept in multiples) they grow to 3" and my snail problem disappeared in no time. I was picking snails out daily, but within a few weeks of having the loach my snail problem was gone! (accept for a few that were too big already for him to eat)

Whoops...LOL I researched loaches because my boyfriend wanted some but we have 5 med-large Mystery Snails and one baby snail and I know loaches are snail eaters. Well, the site I was using at the time said Kuhli's don't eat snails. So we bought a Kuhli, and the same night I bought a live Hornwort which was more or less infested with baby snails. I wasn't too worried about it because it is a 30 gallon and I like the snails. I know I have 3 good sized babies, but now I am wondering if the Kuhli might've eaten the tinier ones. Maybe that is a good thing. Will all loaches eat larger snails or is it only the small ones?

THEFORDMAN00 · 10-15-2007, 04:54 PM

float a piece of lettuce and simply rinse the lettuce and repeat

clown loaches work well 2 but if u dont have the room the lettuce method works wonders trust me

BMueller777 · 10-15-2007, 06:03 PM

This post is from 2006 rofl

fernival brainard · 10-19-2007, 04:58 PM

3 smaller ones, IMO, would be fine...I got clowns to handle up on my snail prob. and I am now looking for free snails from friends cause the buggers like em so much...they have cleaned up over 250 gal. of combined tanks....

just FYI, a penny hasn't been copper since 1983. any penny older than '83 is worth more money for it's copper content than it's face value (coin collector in my house)
fern