clown loach with baby bristlenose?

[bojulabah]

Can people share their experiences with ridding their Bristlrnose / community tank of snails? I have a buddy who swears that his clown loach has eaten all the snails in his community taks and not touched any baby bristlenose or baby cichlids? - I need to get rid of snails and don't want to harm the baby fish (or plants).

[Priscacara]

I know its been a long time since you posted but busy time and just got a chance to kick back and read the forums.

I used to keep some clown loaches in a small community tank and they got rid of the snails very quickly, they do grow very large eventually which wouldnt have been good in this particular tank. Unfortunately I didnt have them for too long as there was a breakdown in the bio and I had a crash losing all but 7 tetras...............my guess is overstocked tank. The smallest fish they were in with was a neon tetra and they never hassled them any, I know your baby bn will be smaller but I dont think it would be a concern. I have 2 community tanks where bn are breeding and maybe 1 in 10 make it to a hiding spot before being eaten, in both cases its cichlids that are a decent size. I would hate for you to go ahead and get loaches and lose the lot so please ask around at the shops and hopefuly someone with more knowledge on the forums will have some input.

[dobbin4]

There was a post about this in Dec,

Yes they will eat young B nose and any eggs that are laid they love

If the B nose are say 3cm your ok with up to 5cm at the max C L's

As said the fry dont last if in with any larger cichlids, even 4cm Ps will eat them.

So if you b nose are at least a couple of months old get the smaller C L and your going to get rid of the snials.

Good luck getting rid of those snails

[Priscacara]

Always good to be corrected when I get it wrong, thanks dobbin I'd hate for someone to lose fish because I wasnt right.