Growing clowns fast! tips and info

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H

henward

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 25, 2008
1,260
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Auckland, New Zealand
Ok
aros, 1inch a month is a good growth rate.

With clown loachs, what is a good growth rate.
Also tips on how to grow them fast and hard?

I have purchased a school of 20 small clowns, started to school with 5 medium clowns.
the smallone are currently 3 to 4 cms MAX, mediums are 6 to 8 max.
Currently, the water params are as follows:
28 to 29c
nitrates never higher than 20ppm *(thats at the peak) 90% of the time its on 10 to 12. After very heavy feeds goes up.
Tank is 1200Litres.
has an auto drip change system hence the constant nitrate levels and low levels. Temps never fluctuate more than 1c EVER due to ambient temps. that also fluctuates slowly.

FEEDING:
NLS Thera 1 as a staple
and Beefheart/shrimp/fish paste mix was intended for discus, no more discus so now they eat it.
They love it,
bellies are always full.
I had the school of small ones for 1 month now, in that time they grew about 1cm on average with heavy feeding and heavy filtrationa nd WC regime.

Any ideas on how to grow them faster?
what sort of growth rate is good?
 
my 2-3cm ones are growing quickly. the one that came with my tank has doubled in length and height. i go the tank in june! the six smaller ones are approaching his size when i first got him, i've had them about two months. sounds like you're doing everything right. once they get bigger 4"+ an inch a year is considered good growth.
 
The trick to growing clowns, to make sure you don't grow them into monsters. You can power feed them. Then they become obsessed with food. And will fight other tank mates for it later in life. But to grow them the fastest, feed them small meals 3 times a day.

At 2 inches, they're still baby newborn size. A full grown clown in the wild can push 18+ inches, meaning at 2 inches, they're an infant. At the shop where I work, if they don't get fed twice a day, and a vacation feeder left in the tank for them to munch on, they'll start losing weight. I was able to grow some at my house from 2 inch to 5 inches in a year. They put on lots of girth and height, to match the length. Out of the 30 or so I did that with there are still a few that are only 3 inches, and some larger than the 5 inches..

I find that zuchinni left in the tank overnight, a couple times a week, and cocktail shrimp work well on the other days. With pellets thrown in between for vitamins.
 
CoryWM, are you Guzman?
 
The reality is clown loaches do not grow fast & hard. Just keep doing what you are doing & growth will come in due time. CL's are not hard wired to gain massive growth at a young age, their growth should be steady & even or they simply become obese as they age. Lots of big, fat, ugly CL's out there, but you will never see a fat adult CL in the wild.
Within a large group, some CL's always seem to surpass others in growth.
Could be a sex related reason, not sure, but expect some biggies, and a few smaller specimens within a large group, even when grown under the exact same conditions.

At their current size, feeding two decent sized meals a day is more than adequate, 3 feedings a day would be even better. TherA is what I start all my clown loaches out on, and later shift to one of the regular NLS 1mm formulas. As they reach the 10cm size, I up the size of pellet to 2mm, and keep them on that until they get closer to 20 cm. (then feed 3mm)

The CL's below were in the 15cm range when that photo was taken, and were raised exclusively on NLS pellets.

fish740.jpg
 
That's a super nice loach!!!! And yea with my experience just feed the 3 times a day! Mines didn't really grow fast... I saw growth but very very slow
 
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