Actually I have breed Clown Loaches a few years ago but mostly for the fun/challenge as they are so cheap to import. Hormone breeding is such common practice now that its finally starting to filter down to home aquarists at last.
I visit fish farms in SE Asia as often as I can and I can assure you many places do artificially breed clown loaches on a very large scale. One farm distinctly remember produces over a million fish per month. They breed a lot of other fish species too.
Hormone induced breeding is nowhere near as easy as some people like to think. Its just another extention of fish breeding IMO. A big advantage is to prepare a lot of brood stock (like all breeding schemes) as individual fish respond to hormones differently which makes it harder for the home aquarist. Without large economy of scale I estimate it was costing me about 20 times the wholesale price to breed the fish than to buy even though I already do a lot of breeding. Ewurm - your welcome to PM me if you want some private info.
