This is an odd question . . .

[phaedraeos]

Does anyone else have a school of clown loaches that rolls around in their sand subtrate? I was watching our school of 10 (3" to 7"), and they seemed to just enjoy take turns rolling around as they were swimming - a quick dive into the sand and then a shimmy on one side and then they continued swimming forwards.

Specifics of the tank:

125g, water tests fine, no visible signs of disease.

 

[Mystix212]

My clowns sometimes appear to be playing leap frog. What they do is 1 sits on the bottom, and another one moves in front of it. The one, now behind moves in front. Occasionaly they will do this untill they've gone from one end of the tank to the other.

 

[phaedraeos]

Ours also take turns swimming up one corner of the tank about 5" and then down again. As the first is swimming down, the second will start swimming up, and the two of them take turns for close to 15 minutes at a time.

That leapfrog game sounds neat!

 

[jconley]

Does anyone else have a school of clown loaches that rolls around in their sand subtrate? I was watching our school of 10 (3" to 7"), and they seemed to just enjoy take turns rolling around as they were swimming - a quick dive into the sand and then a shimmy on one side and then they continued swimming forwards.

Specifics of the tank:

125g, water tests fine, no visible signs of disease.

Watch them carefully! That is usually one of the first signs of a parasite infection, usually ICH. Are any of your other fish "scratching"?

 

[phaedraeos]

That's what I thought at first but I inspected them and other fish closely and all look great.

 

[duke33]

You still might have a problem IF they are flashing, keep an eye on it.

 

[phaedraeos]

flashing?

 

[phaedraeos]

the other thing is that we JUST converted to sand about a week ago, and we'd used larger gravel before. so the sand is new to them.

 

[duke33]

Flashing is like scratching. Sometimes means parasites.

 

[TheKeyToArson]

the other thing is that we JUST converted to sand about a week ago, and we'd used larger gravel before. so the sand is new to them.

Switching substrates will not cause loaches to Flash(scratch) as you desribed in your first post. It's almost always an indication of a parisite usually Ick. The good news is that you have probably caught it early if you can not yet see anything on the fish.