Loaches - ONLY tank ?

I once kept a species only tank with 18 clown loaches (4-7") in a 6ft 125 gallon. They had a defined hierarchy within the group & each loach even had it's own special sleeping spot in the tank. It was a fun tank, and they never hid.

The one thing you might want to consider with regards to mixing loaches is that not all loaches are compatible, some such as the Redtail loach (Yasuhikotakia modesta) can be down right nasty as they mature, and are not suitable to be kept in any type of loach community.


This was the dominant loach in my set up.......

I have seen some.. there is a cool video out on the web somewhere on a huge clown loach tank where they had schools of foot long ones along with lots of smaller but still large ones. It was particularly cool because most the fish were schooling in the middle of the tank vs staying close to the bottom like they usually do. I'm not sure if this was because they were so big, or because they had the tank to themselves or something else.

There is a folder on MFK specific to loaches, just in case you didn't know. I even have a sticky at the top of that folder that may interest you.

I almost had this - though I did have some fish other than loaches. Loaches were the first fish (other than natives) that really sparked my interest in the hobby. I got a group of Botia striata at WalMart (!!) when I was like 14, and I really can't imagine not having any loaches. I don't know what type of loaches you had in mind, but personally I think Botia types loaches are by far the most interesting. I used to have a tank that had Botia striata, dario, historanica, yoyos, kubotai, rostrata, and sidthumunki. It was too small to have clowns, and I eventually accidentally killed them all using bad meds. I was so mad because it took me long time to collect all them, and some of those are quite rare. I currently have striatas, historanica, yoyo, clowns, kuhlis, and a redtail. I have also had skunks, sumos, weather, hillstream, and pandas (very upset - loved these little guys and my stupid "non-predatory" Bimactulatus catfish ate them!)

One thing I will say about CL's, and I'm guessing most other species of loaches, at least the species that I've personally kept over the years, their behaviour is completely different when they are allowed to be the only species in the tank, or at the very least, the most dominant fish in the tank. I never saw clown loaches interact the way they did until I kept them in a species only tank.


The other thing I will add is although some species such as CL's can eventualy get quite large, when kept in a large group typically there are only a few that reach the uber sizes that one sometimes sees, such as 12". I have personally only seen a few that reached this size in captivity, they were 15+ years old. I have also seen CL's that were 15 yrs old, and were only 7", so not all CL's are neccessarily genetically wired to reach 12".

Even if one does keep them for 10+ years, and they do eventually get too large for ones tank, large CL's are always in demand & always sell for a premium price so it's never an issue to find them new homes. I eventually split my group up among two local friends who both had tanks in the 350-500 range, and years later those loaches are still only 8" at best, and some smaller. This is one of the rare occasions where I personally feel that some people put far too much emphasis on min tank sizes.

I rarely see my largest ones any more. They used to be real active, schooling against the glass and always on the move. Now they hardly come out, even during feeding. I'm suspecting as you said, because there are larger fish in the tank now. Weird since there is no antagonistic behavior at all in the tank.. except rare instances of species on species pecking order.. like my kissing gourami will posture around with each other.

Nothing ever messes with any of the loaches though so its weird that they don't eventually learn to ignore the bigger fish like everything else in the tank does and go about their normal behavior.

Because of this I like the Yoyo loaches better. They're always active and are very playful, even playing with other species in the tank constantly. And they grow fast. I have one year old Yoyo's that are as big as 6 year old Clowns... about 5 inches. My biggest Clown is about 6 inches.. and they're about 6 years old.

Stranger yet, the smaller clowns stay active and are always "around". Once they get more mature, then they seem to more likely to hide.. this seems true right up to my largest ones which are seen the least.

I have black kuhli, kuhli, giant kuhli, and horsefaced loaches together with an number of cories.
no hassles, and they all spend a fair amount of time out in the open both group and off alone.