Pictus Catfish or Clown Loaches?

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Aqualoon

Piranha
MFK Member
Jul 8, 2009
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Minnesota
So as you can see from my sig, I have an empty 125 Gallon. Gold Saums are probably one of my favorite fish and Rapps has them at a nice size where I think he could pick out a male for me. He also has Gold/Red Sevs and efasciatus. So stock wise I'm thinking one of each and then a schooling bottom dweller. I have always wanted to keep clown loaches (had a school of yoyo in the past) but now I'm considering a group of Pictus Catfish instead.

The plus side to the clowns is that once my group becomes too large to house comfortably in my 125 gallon, re-homing/selling large clown loaches is extremely easy. I'm not too sure the same could be said about the Pictus, but on the other side of that, the catfish don't grow as large as the clowns.

So what do you guys think?

Stock wise what I mentioned above is what I have planned, I may ask Jeff what else he has in stock at comparable size that's not seen every day that he has in stock that would work with the rest of my stock. So that's 3-4 Cichlids + a school of loaches or catfish.
 
Suggest the clown loaches.
 
Got to go with the clown loachs very rarely do they get 9 inch and they are also very slow growers. Great personality and active fish, my favorite loach.
 
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The gold saum could be aggressive enough to keep clowns from being as outgoing and active as they are known to be. With that said, a 125 would last a shoal of clowns many years.
 
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Why would settle with popular option?
I'm refer Pictus cats, they don't get sick easy, they will eat everything, they're active even more than the loaches, you can hand feed them too.
 
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Why would settle with popular option?
I'm refer Pictus cats, they don't get sick easy, they will eat everything, they're active even more than the loaches, you can hand feed them too.
My loachs have never gotten sick, it all depends on water quality. Loachs also eat any leftover they can find to include plant matter. Ich is a big problem with loachs keep water temp around 78+ and you'll avoid ich all together.
 
The gold saum could be aggressive enough to keep clowns from being as outgoing and active as they are known to be. With that said, a 125 would last a shoal of clowns many years.
I don't think they would ever out grow a 125 lol unless your talking about 10 plus shoal of loachs.
 
I don't think they would ever out grow a 125 lol unless your talking about 10 plus shoal of loachs.

Not saying it couldn't be done, but I personally wouldn't keep my current shoal in an 18" wide tank. I have 6 that range from 5" to 9-10". The largest is about 8 years old. I have them in 5x2x2, and ideally would really like another foot in length.
 
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Not saying it couldn't be done, but I personally wouldn't keep my current shoal in an 18" wide tank. I have 6 that range from 5" to 9-10". The largest is about 8 years old. I have them in 5x2x2, and ideally would really like another foot in length.
Bigger is always better
 
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