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clown loach with snails?


novafishy

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in my 2ft planted tank, i had an outburst of those small snails. not the ones with the cone shaped shell, but the round brown shells. (if u get what i mean)

anyway, ive heard that clown loaches eat snails and suck em out of their shells.

so i bought a 4cm clown loach and its been almost a month and there has been no sign of snails disappearing. they are still there!

what is wrong? is it cos this particular clown loach doesnt like snails?

thanks! wink.gif

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i think you are talking about ramshorn snails... i have not heard of clown loaches eating them... but it is worth a try... i know that bettas can peck them to bits... and my murray cod loves to crush the bigger ones in his mouth and then swallow them...

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My bf used to have a planted tank FULL of this type of snails (my guess would be >100 snails in there). When we turned on the light suddenly in the mid-night, there's hundreds of these little snails clawing on all the java moss, glass, and even some were floating on the water surface. dry.gif

We've tried to use "Snail Away" but it was no use. No difference after the whole tank treatment with this chemical solution. Later in that week, we've then bought a 4cm clown loach, put it into the tank and was thinking that he might be full to death! LOL.gif but that was not the case, there's seem to be no change for the first few weeks and those snails were remind in the same amount..we were very disappointed. dry.gif But after 2 months, there was not much snails left in the tank (only a few left) and my bf said that he heard the clow loach has made some "crushing shell" sound at night, so guessing the fish was eating the snails. Oh well, at least the snails are almost gone now, it has done a great job. smile.gif

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A clown loach can only handle so much.

Would you eat snails if other food was available.

Im sure he eats the snails as he sees fit and is hungry at the time.

Overall he will decrease snail population over time.

Just like being at sizzler and eating nothing but speghetti you would get damn sick of it.

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Definitely add at least two more; they seem happier with at least 3. And don't feed anything else; they soon get the idea. Mine were the same; took a month, then suddenly no more. I did squash a few to get them started.

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LOL!! Clown Loaches are the best... you might want to consider getting him a friend or several friends. They don't like to be alone.

I have 15 loaches and it looks great when they are all swimming together smile.gif

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I agree with the above comments....clown loaches are gregarious by nature and feel much happier and more secure in numbers. I have a group of large clowns (9) and a group of juvies (15) which get moved around to keep the snails down to reasonable numbers. They will eventually get the snail problem under control wink.gif

merjo smile.gif

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 years later...

You definantly need to buy himor her a few friends(clown loaches). i have found if you don't keep them in groups of t least 3 they will get ick very quickly and it will keep returning if you keep treating it and they will eventually die from it. Of coarse as they get older they become more solitary and may not mind being alone with no other clown loaches. This is when they reach about 20cm+.....Some small will also not mind neing solatary but the snails will definantly go quicker with a group of about 3.

One day i felt like giving my clowns a treat, so i bought a few medium sized mystery snails(2-3cm i guess) and they we gone within about 30 min to 1hr...They absolutly loved them!!!!!

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i had the same deal in my planted tank, i went a school of dwarf loach also know as chain loach, after a few months i felt bad for the snails cause it looked like it was a war zone with thousands of dead snails, best thing about these lttle guys is they are little guys so in a planted tank they will not cause destraction like some large clown loach can do

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Yea I got the same problem. :p

I was thinking though, if I added a bit of sea salt or cooking salt, would it kill the snails, whilst keeping the fish alive?

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