Clown Loach vs Pacu

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DeLgAdO said:
i think if you raise a pacu on non fish diet (i.e pellets and veggies) when theyre small and grow em out, i think they would be morre compadible with smaller fishes such as clown loaches.
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no such thing, pacus are outright predatory in aquariums, readily devouring anything, including fish.
 
I think it depends on the Pacu. I've heard from people who have Pacu that won't permit any other fish in their tank. Ours are the exact opposite. Very gentle. We've got two small, 1.5 inch Clown Loaches in the same tank with two 8+ inch Pacu. When they're going for the same morsal of food, I'm always afraid that the Pacu will swallow the loach. His mouth is big enough. But both Pacu are always careful to eat the morsal and not the fish.

Chuck
 
I had a Pacu that got the size of a dinner plate in a 55 gallon tank (thanks WalMart) and all it would eat was Hikari Gold........a ton of it. Never saw it eat a fish one time....maybe a ghost shrimp. I finally brought it up to the my LFS and they put it in a pond with a bunch of small comets and koi and it didn't bother anyone untill they sold it. From that....I would say it all depends on the fish and what it was raised on.
 
What is a Queen loach?
In the US the fish I have seen sold as queen loaches were Botia dario and only reach 6". I wonder if the one they sell here as Royal loach is the same thing as what you see as Queen loach, Leptobotia elongata, it reaches at least 24". I have not seen them for sale recently except for a couple listings in the UK.
The lepidocephalrichthys manipuerensis gets to 22", the L. irrorata reaches 15", I have never seen those. The catfish loach, Triplophysa siluroides gets 15" and is very predatory, I have only seen them for sale once years ago.
here is a pic of the L. elongata, and of the T. siluroides.

leptobotia_elongata4_small.jpg

tinnhai0215.jpg
 
Mudfrog said:
My thoughts exactly, my oscar tried eating a clown once and it quickly learned to never try it again. I never had that problem again.
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Clown loaches are one of my favorite fish. An interesting datum about these fish related to the topic of dangerous spines is that botia (part of their scientific name) is a regional Asian native word meaning warrior or soldier -- referring to the "warrior's" spines they have under each eye.

Chuck
 
i think it depends on the size of the tank you are going to put them in. if the tank is big then the clowns will grow to slow and the pacu will double in size shortly. also if you feed your pacu veggies when young you'll have no prob. i thought pacus were vegitarian anyways. i had one who occasionally ate shrimp but thats it. he typically ate flake and veggie pellets. in the wild they would eat the occasional invert cause of them being on the grasses and plants that they graze on. not sure though.
 
Michael 125 said:
i thought pacus were vegitarian anyways. i had one who occasionally ate shrimp but thats it. he typically ate flake and veggie pellets. in the wild they would eat the occasional invert cause of them being on the grasses and plants that they graze on. not sure though.
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They're omnivores, with about 70 percent of their meals in the wild coming from plant sources, and the rest from insects and whatever else they can find.

I found one of mine munching on a pictus catfish the other night. My wife thinks that catfish was already dead, but I'm thinking this particular Pacu hunted him down.

Chuck
 
actually pacus are ominivores they will eat both meat and veg. If you don't believe me wait until your pacus get hungry and drop in some cherry tomatoes halves. They should be fine but with fish there is nothing 100% I would provide some hiding space for the loaches if you decide to mix them.
 
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