Myah Posted February 25, 2009 Report Share Posted February 25, 2009 Hi everyone. There's an ad. on another site with 3 clown loaches for sale that stipulates 2 males 1 female. When I enquired how you sex them, the reply was that the males stripe is black whereas the females is not so black. "Quite simple really." I thought it had something to do with one of the sexes having a hooked effect on the end of the tail. Any way of clearing this matter up for me would be most appreciated. I have 6 clown loaches and find it a bit hard to tell as when the larger ones are sorting out who is boss, their black stripes go quite faded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smidey Posted February 25, 2009 Report Share Posted February 25, 2009 i don't know how to sex them but i don't believe that there has ever been any in the world that have breed in an aquarium without being injected with hormones so it may not make any difference what sex they are. i have 3, they don't ever seem to get aggressive with each other either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix44 Posted February 25, 2009 Report Share Posted February 25, 2009 was that the males stripe is black whereas the females is not so black. thats about as accurate as saying the males are more masculine than the females. what is the point of having males and females any how? unless you can replicate a nice flowing river, in several segments they wont breed. HTH :bounce: they dont breed in aquariums, but there are commercial setups in which they will breed. 20,000L cement tanks with natural river emulating systems for eg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted February 27, 2009 Report Share Posted February 27, 2009 From all my reading about clown loaches for the last 7 or 8 years, I have never found any reliable way of telling the difference between the sexes. There was even one woman who did very careful post mortems on her large clown loaches (after she tragically lost several in an incident with a filter ). She found out which were male and which were female by dissecting them, and then tried to see if there was any outward physical sign of their differences. I believe she concluded that there was no reliable external indicator of their sex. I would humbly suggest that anyone selling clown loaches as male or female is just taking a wild guess. And as others have said, there is no reliable account of clown loaches ever breeding in a domestic aquarium, nor any evidence of differences in behaviour between the sexes, so as far as i know there is no advantage to knowing if they are male or female. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave+Amy Posted February 28, 2009 Report Share Posted February 28, 2009 plus their stripes start to fade in colour with age too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 prolly got told by some LFS attendant that was how you sex them lol.. as far as i know.. absolutely no way to tell. and btw, yes they have bred in captivity... http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... ?news=1429 i have heard a whisper that the age of the clown loach is more important than the size when it comes to breeding. as the article mentions they were 4 or 5 years old, and also very large. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted March 4, 2009 Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 prolly got told by some LFS attendant that was how you sex them lol.. as far as i know.. absolutely no way to tell. and btw, yes they have bred in captivity... http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... ?news=1429 i have heard a whisper that the age of the clown loach is more important than the size when it comes to breeding. as the article mentions they were 4 or 5 years old, and also very large. Thanks for that link, Luke - I had missed it. Very interesting! Gives new hope to all of us who have been keeping loaches for many years. Now all I have to do is lower the pH of my tank and watch them start breeding! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 Hmmm.... Colin Dunlop from Carluke, Scotland... told Practical Fishkeeping that his four Clown loaches, which are around four or five years old and 14-20cm in length, had started acting strangely and were cruising around the tank in mid-water. The largest fish, a 20cm female, was being followed around the tank by three males in what Dunlop believed might be pre-spawning behaviour... "The rear fish were often at her vent and they were cruising around the tank together quite quickly," Dunlop told Practical Fishkeeping. "They are quite sociable with each other normally but this was a bit different. It stuck out as all four were joining in. They are normally quite active and not shy at all." Today I emptied a large tub of water from out on the deck, and collected lots of mosquito larvae which I put into my community tank for their dinner. I also did a 20% water change and topped up the tank with rain water from other containers on the deck (I usually use tap water). Later in the evening my partner called me to come and look. Our five clown loaches were swimming rapidly around the tank, with the largest one in the lead and the others all following closely behind. They kept this up for about 30 minutes. We have never seen behaviour like this from the loaches before. My partner took a video on his phone which he will upload to his computer at work tomorrow. I've had my oldest three loaches since 2001, so they are at least eight years old. The other two are about five years old (I got them in mid 2004 from someone who had had them for several months). The largest one (named Hatu Patu) is only about 10cm long, so nowhere near the size of Colin Dunlop's. I will post the video on Youtube when I get it. Interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix44 Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 any eggs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 I don't know if there are any eggs. From Colin Dunlop's description and photo in the Practical Fish Keeping article, if there were any they would be very tiny and hard to see. It's a fairly well-planted community tank and the loaches' cruising took them through plants and in and out of their rock caves and driftwood so there could easily be eggs that I can't see. One thing I did watch for was whether the other fish in the tank (mostly barbs) were following the loaches and feeding in their wake. I thought that might be a clue about whether there were any eggs around. I didn't notice it particularly. By the way, the cherry barbs and gold barbs in the same tank have been in spawning condition for several weeks now, and show very vigorous spawning behavour as soon as I open the curtains every morning. Now I just have to convince my partner that we need a 1300 litre tank* in our living room, exclusively for clown loaches. He doesn't seem very keen so far but I'm sure I can wear him down. * the size of Colin Dunlop's loach tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix44 Posted March 8, 2009 Report Share Posted March 8, 2009 I think you need a 1300L tank too *nods :bounce: :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted March 13, 2009 Report Share Posted March 13, 2009 hehe......... yeehaw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted March 13, 2009 Report Share Posted March 13, 2009 I think you need a 1300L tank too *nods :bounce: :lol: I'm still awaiting the call from the mysterious benefactor who's going to donate a 1300 litre tank and stand to my clown loach breeding project. :lol: Oh and I'll need several high-quality filters, a few hundred litres of substrate, an enormous piece of stunning twisted driftwood, some rare and spectacular plants (and the appropriate lights etc to grow them) and probably just a couple of hundred neon tetras to keep the loaches company. In exchange you'll get naming rights to all the new baby loaches when they're born. Who can resist a deal like that? :bounce: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gannet Posted March 14, 2009 Report Share Posted March 14, 2009 there was a guy in ozzy that went on holyday and left his tank to his mum, during that tym the ph droped to 4 and when he got back 6months latter there was about 10-12 small clown loaches and he throught his mum had brought some more untill he asked her and she said she hadnt :roll: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted March 14, 2009 Report Share Posted March 14, 2009 there was a guy in ozzy that went on holyday and left his tank to his mum, during that tym the ph droped to 4 and when he got back 6months latter there was about 10-12 small clown loaches and he throught his mum had brought some more untill he asked her and she said she hadnt :roll: Yes, there are quite a few cases of people in different parts of the world saying their clown loaches have bred in captivity - but nobody seems to be able to produce any proof. People do breed them by treating them with hormones and fertilising the eggs in vitro, but nobody has ever documented fry surviving from a natural spawning. In fact the article linked above by Luke is the only time I have ever seen evidence of a clown loach laying eggs in captivity without hormones. I hope the guy in Australia documented his experience and submitted it to a reputable source for verification. Until then, I remain very sceptical about such claims. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 lol gannet even after 6months they'd be tiny as aye. unless there was daily brine shrimp going in. but his mum was prolly forgettin to feed 'em half the time anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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