I recently brought 10 of these lil things from the local petshop and they don't seem to be eating many snails as every morning I see HEAPS of brown ramshorns on the glass and I collect HEAPS in the bottom of the bucket during siphoning.

I thought they were meant to be good snail control?

they tend to take out the little ones(snails), you may still have some big ones that they cant get into?

It wont happen overnight but it will happen

Mine do a great job

funny, ive never seen ours tackle snails. Our skunk loach does all the snail cleaning (eating) if you wanted to try them? (not as pretty mind you)

had a skunk loach and did a great job but also tended to nip fins of my guppies so had to get rid of it..shame really, doing a better job than the chain loaches put together

so thats where all my snails went YAY

starve them

I dOn't know what exactly they're eating but I've noticed two out of six in my big tank are quite huge (both slightly longer and fatter) in comparison to the other 4 and are always chased by the others...getting huge oval shaped snails now and have no idea where they came from but i know they are too BIG for the chain loaches to eat

The best snail eaters are Clown Loaches or Yo-Yo/Pakastani Loaches. Clowns will grow about 2cm per year with max of 10"-12", Yo-yo's will grow slowly to around 10-11cm.

My best snail eater was a Vampire pleco. Cleaned out over 400 trumpets in 2 weeks and when I ended up with too many ramshorns in my other tanks I tossed them in for them too and never saw them again. However I don't think they're easy to come by or cheap.....

Clowns will grow about 2cm per year with max of 10"-12",

Nonsense. If you're small (under 6") clowns grow at 2cm per year then you must be starving them or you've stunted them by keeping them in too small a tank. In the 3 months since the Animates buy one get one free day some of the loaches I bought there would have put on 1cm.

D&A; How big is the tank? If the loaches are looking fat then it may well be that the snail population is too big for them to wipe out over-night. Just remember they aren't exactly huge fish and there's a lot of meat in the snails. They will be eating them, so if you help them by removing them with water changes etc then you'll get it under control eventually.

The best snail eaters are Clown Loaches or Yo-Yo/Pakastani Loaches. Clowns will grow about 2cm per year with max of 10"-12", Yo-yo's will grow slowly to around 10-11cm.

Or Zebra Loaches (Botia Striata). I have two of these guys and they cleaned up a small infestation in my 155 litre tank in about a week. They only grow to about 10cm so suitable for a smaller tank. I did recommed these ones to you in your other thread but for some reason everyone raved about the dwarf chain. But anway.. although these were fairly small snails, and it sounds like your snails are bigger? How big?

Have a look here http://www.loaches.com. That website doesn't say that dwarf chain eats snails, where as they do say that the yoyo and zebra do eat snails.

I currently have 6 in my 6foot tank and 4 in my 2foot tank - it's the 4 in my two foot tank that's not doing much they seem to overlook the snails even when they're right on it, the ones in the 6foot are fatter and larger than the 2foot tank counterparts.

Would I be able to buy a Clown Loach if I have these smaller ones? If I'm getting Cories this weekend then would my bottom dwelling community be too crampt in my 6foot?

Cheers

Nonsense. If you're small (under 6") clowns grow at 2cm per year then you must be starving them or you've stunted them by keeping them in too small a tank. In the 3 months since the Animates buy one get one free day some of the loaches I bought there would have put on 1cm.

LOL , i see you say some? Try getting 10 young clowns at the same size then check them in a year, some will be near twice the size of the others, i've had clowns for 6 yrs and have 16 in 2 4'tanks from 2 1/2" to 9" and on average over their life will grow 2cm per year.

Most things grow faster when young and slower when older.

The 4' tank is probably the reason you've seen a drop in growth. I've seen several articles saying that a 6'x2'x2' should be the minimum tank size for adults, and even small loaches shouldn't be kept in anything less than a 4' tank, and I can back this up with my own experience. About 7 years ago (btw I've been keeping clowns for around 10 years) I bought 6 small clowns and put them into a 5'x2'x2' tank. In less than two years they were all getting close to 6". I broke the tank down and sold the loaches to a friend, who keeps them in a 4'x18"x18" tank. Today they are still only around 6".

My current group of large clowns are around 5-7", 4 of them were bought at jansens as "medium" about 14 months ago. They've all put on at least 5cm of growth in 12 months. My larger four haven't grown anywhere near as fast in the same time, as I think the tank size is slowing down their growth. They'll all be shifted to my 600L tank in about a months time, and my 14 smaller loaches into the 300L 4' until they're big enough to go in the 600L.

Its a well documented fact that their growth does slow down around 6", but perhaps yours wouldn't have grown so slowly if they had more room to swim.

so, would 6 chain loaches + 5 bristlenoses + 10 cories with a possible larger loach species be too much for a bottom dwelling community in a 6foot tank?

No, its over-kill if you simply want them as a "clean up crew" but certainly wouldn't be over-stocked. The smaller fish might get a bit freaked by the bigger clowns when they grow, but big clowns are always valuable so you would have no problem selling them when they do get too big.

HOW big do the clowns get?? will they eat Cardinals?

Not until they get massive (5-6+ years at a guess) and by that stage they probably will have messed up your plants to the point where you'll either sell them or fall in love with them and forget about the plants.

haha ok...maybe I'll just up the anti and buy more chain loaches, or could I have zebra loaches as well as chain loaches? just so they can take out the slightly larger snails

The zebras sound like a good idea.