Clown Loach Issue...

[Peter McFarlane]

Currently my clown loach shoal are living in my main tank with my cichla, the cichla are getting a big big now and i'm starting to get nervous about the smaller clowns being in there.

So gonna move them to another tank.. Now here's the thing, generally my clowns are very inactive and sleep for hours on end except to feed.

The plan for their new tank is just the shoal of clown loaches (13 of them at 3"-7") and a shoal of maybe 30 cardinals just as dithers.

Whats the smallest tank that I could happily house these guys in? I know its better to have the biggest tank possible but space is limited here.

The tank will have excess filtration and like I said the only other tankmates will be cardinals...

Whats the smallest tank I could safely house these guys in?

 

[Lupin]

125g would be the smallest for 13-15 loaches. Switch the cardinal tetras to larger tetras. I believe the larger clowns being predatory that they are as they grow might just eat the cardinals.

 

[FSM]

I think a 125 would be great. That's weird that they are very inactive. Mine are almost never still.

 

[orinocensis1]

^^ agreed

 

[Peter McFarlane]

They are active at times, but generally only 3 or 4 are out while the rest of them are hiding amongst the bogwood. I have a lot of big pieces with lots of hiding places and they seem to love sleeping for ages!

If I don't feed them for a day then there all out on the prowl, but unless there hungry, generally there lazy boys who like to chill out lol.