zuri08 Posted January 21, 2012 Report Share Posted January 21, 2012 as above Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted January 21, 2012 Report Share Posted January 21, 2012 Flakes and blood worms usually ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2012 i just got 7 loaches and there in with my africans so i have to get something the africans dont like and the loaches like.ryan i saw you keep clowns with your calvus what do you ffed them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris b Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 a mixture of bloodworms, prawns (there 2 favourites) flake,sinking pelets, hikari sinking carnivore,cucumber,zuccini,watermelon, carrott,strawberryies,peas,mushrooms varitey is best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 cool thanks mate will give most a go had no idea about strawberry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 a mixture of bloodworms, prawns (there 2 favourites) flake,sinking pelets, hikari sinking carnivore,cucumber,zuccini,watermelon, carrott,strawberryies,peas,mushrooms varitey is best What a great variety , I will give this a go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I am intrigued with clown loaches in with Africans. I would have thought this not a good mix :-? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris b Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I am intrigued with clown loaches in with Africans. I would have thought this not a good mix :-?[ +1 They have opposite water conditions don't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 the clown loaches adapt very easily to the diffent phs etc and actually do really well together Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David R Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 Really? Given the recent thread of a members CL passing away age 27 I doubt you've been keeping them long enough to draw any conclusions as to the effects of pH on them. I'm interested to hear why you think the loaches are more adaptable to different pH levels than the cichlids too, when this article written by a very experienced loach keeper would suggest otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gill Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I have just given my Clown loaches a little finely chopped soft over ripe strawberries,they love it !! :thup: :thup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disgustipated Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 i would say that africans are much more adaptable to PH levels than clown loaches are... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 yes although the africans are much easier to adapt to ph levels so are the loaches if they have been kept in a higher ph to begin with when imported as was the ones i bought were heres a link from a cichlid site http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/clown_loach.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 also i never said that adapt any better than cichlids mate.but they are known for adapting to their environments if any 1 would like to tell me my loaches arent happy come see for yourself.have been feeding them sinking spirulina and they love it but wanted to vary it some more thanks to those who helped not judged Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris b Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 yes although the africans are much easier to adapt to ph levels so are the loaches if they have been kept in a higher ph to begin with when imported as was the ones i bought were heres a link from a cichlid site http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/clown_loach.php I personly wouldnt be trying it but i just try give my clowns the best life that i can give them. Im sure your clowns will tolerate the different conditons.... well they dont really have a choice :-? It will be interesting to see how they SURVIVE, whether they will be more susceptible to illness, see if they will grow to full size and live a long full life just a shame for those poor fish having to be the experiment "gill" yea my clowns go crazy for anything different i think they just like a change Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 are you seriously saying these fish are suffering in my tank mate?come have a look for yourself.and that means you would be offending every other member or person who has clowns with there africans eg your saying that ryan jury is making fish suffer which i can guarantee that is not the case as he keeps his clowns with calvus yellows etc and they look perfectly healthy and happy to me.do you know what ph clown loaches come in as?7.2-3 usally my ph is 7.8 i dont see how this is an experiment but maybe you should learn abit more before you offend people with your utter nonsense mate.the guy i got them off has had them in with his yellows dems johaniis empress sunshines etc he has been keeping loaches for 30+ years and these guys he grew up from young with the cichlids and my biggest is around 1/2 years old and is about 15cm can you tell me these fish are suffering no you cant a .6 ph differnce from when they come in is nothing major also the guy kept them at 7.8 also so have been used to it there whole lives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I'm sorry I asked! I was more thinking about the aggressive nature of Africans than the pH as I successfully kept, and bred, Africans at 7.2 so I know many fish adapt to pH differences. :roll: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 i wasnt refering to you caryl dont worry :thup: the loaches can definetly defend themselves but my africans arent aggressive towards other fish just amongst themselves yea the cichlids are such a great fish with so many variations and behaviours etc its amazing how they have evolved really.the loaches are as happy as can be always out at the front swimming with the africans it looks really great Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David R Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/clown_loach.php Interestingly enough in another article written by the same author she stresses that "simulating the precise chemistry for the fish you're keeping" as one of the three fundamentals of maintaining water quality. (link). I wouldn't go to a BMW website to ask advice on my Mercedes, and likewise I think the article I posted from loaches.com carries far more weight. The cichlidforum one (don't get me wrong, its a great website ... for cichlids!) seems to have been written from the angle of justifying keeping loaches in far-from-ideal water conditions. There are other things that don't really stack up, like suggesting that they be kept in a minimum group of three (in reality three fish hardly makes a school), no mention of water flow, temperature, and favoured water conditions, etc etc. are you seriously saying these fish are suffering in my tank mate? ... and they look perfectly healthy and happy to me. I don't think anyone is accusing you of mis-treating your fish, or saying that they are "suffering". But as I said before, how long have you been keeping them? They probably look fine on a day to day basis, but have you been keeping them long enough to see the effects of things like reduced lifespan, stunted growth, decreased resistance to disease, bearing in mind you're talking about a species that SHOULD live for well over 20 years and grow close to 12" if kept properly. How much reading have you done on osmoregulation and osmotic shock? They may appear to be happy and healthy this very minute, but that is not necessarily the sole factor in determining the overall health of a fish. do you know what ph clown loaches come in as?7.2-3 usally my ph is 7.8 i dont see how this is an experiment but maybe you should learn abit more before you offend people with your utter nonsense mate.the guy i got them off has had them in with his yellows dems johaniis empress sunshines etc he has been keeping loaches for 30+ years and these guys he grew up from young with the cichlids and my biggest is around 1/2 years old and is about 15cm can you tell me these fish are suffering no you cant a .6 ph differnce from when they come in is nothing major also the guy kept them at 7.8 also so have been used to it there whole lives You do know that pH is measured on a logarithmic scale, so a pH of 6.0 is 10 times more acaid than a pH of 7.0, and 100 times more acidic than a pH of 8.0 right? 0.6 difference may sound like "nothing major", but if you're already keeping them on the high side of normal it could represent a big jump. Also the hardness of the water is just as important [if not more so] to consider in this case than the pH. As for "I know someone who's been doing it for years and its fine", you could use this kind of justification for almost everything from keeping fish to driving drunk, but that doesn't alter the science behind it. I've seen people keeping groups of frontosa (the fancy blue ones even) in big mixed tanks with barbs, datnoids and all kinds of other fish in water thats way off what they'd usually be found in. Heck people have even had reasonable success acclimatising fish like bumblebee groupers to fresh water (or very light brackish). Some people feel that if the fish is alive thats all that matters, while others feel obliged to do their best to replicate the natural environment of the fish. The thing that vexes me here is not so much the keeping of clowns in hard water, but the attitude that it is essential to keep the cichlids in perfect rift-lake-spec water but fine to keep the loaches in considerably different chemistry. Surely if you insist on mixing fish from two different environments the sensible thing to do would be to compromise? I'm certain you could gradually drop your pH closer to neutral (along with the hardness) and not notice any ill effects on the cichlids. Caryl certainly isn't the only person I've seen keeping rift lake cichlids in neutral water with great success. Chemistry aside, I used to feed my 30 loaches on a staple diet of Hikari sinking cichlid gold, with a mixture of prawn, bloodworms, zucchini, NLS TheraA and other bits and pieces offered on an irregular basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henward Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 i guess if you have them from small, those who dont make it dont adapt and those who do are adaptable - like african cichlids living in soft water, some may actually be ok. weather they THRIVE or not is another issue i guess. my clowns are all in soft acific waters. as for food ;my current stable is sinking wafers by hikari - i feed occasional massivores and i used to feed sinking cichlid gold. But they will mow down the occasional prawn tha the aro doesnt eat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanjury Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 No comment on the clowns in hard water lol But mine just eat what all the other fish eat, NLS, salmon pellets and flake, clowns are friendly and come upto the surface to eat and are always fat and growing really fast. I haven't seen any serious aggression from any of the cichlids directed at the clown loaches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 It would be rather tedious but you could measure their lengths ( and if not too stressful their weights ) to confirm that they are growing as expected. This is what Plunket used to do :sage: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David R Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I think plunket would have fairly good data to compare it to, I'm not sure what the expected growth for young clowns would be! Probably faster than most people think if housed properly though (4' tank at the bare minimum, moved into a 6' before they reach 10cm, plenty of flow, soft water and a good diet). I know the small ones I bought and raised like that were fast catching the older ones I'd bought from other people where they [may have] spent their lives in less than ideal conditions. Henward can share similar results of good growth from young ones housed in a large tank from a small size. I'm still not sure on what the long-term effects of stunting would be though [other than the obvious smaller size], would it also equate to a shortened lifespan or can you essentially bonsai a fish by keeping it in a smaller tank..... Ryan, you'd be the right person to do some experiments with this, it would be interesting to see the results if you split a batch of fry and keep one lot in hard water and the other half in neutral then document and compare their growth. I'm guessing if you avoid the opposite extremes the difference will be negligible with most common fish we get here, especially when young (although I did have problems with my old altifrons getting HITH in water around 7.4, which seems to have been fixed by moving them to a tank with a pH closer to 6). I think most fish would do fine with middle-of-the-road parameters (temp, pH etc), which is why I find it a bit strange that cichlid keepers who also keep clowns seem so reluctant to compromise on the water conditions, but I'm sure rift lake cichlids wouldn't do well in really soft water with a pH of 6.0, high flow and 30C temps, which is what the clowns will thrive in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zuri08 Posted January 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 oh well so it looks like some people have some underlying issues maybe themselves if they cannot grasp the fact that these fish when brought in were in 7.2-3 ph and then gradually entered 7.8ph which now over 1/2 years old are thriving healthy fat clowns with loads of personality if a fish is not thriving and just survivng there personality dimiishes dramatically i just rehomed my last goldfish which i had had for 13 years and was 40 cm so i think i can justify that my fish will grow older than they usually would and live a happy healthy life.i dont really care about what sites say when i can gather personall experiences and act on them alone not some american sites that have too much time on there hands.its funny that im getting critised for keeping fish in there conditions there use to should i have put them in my guppy tank at 6.4 ph and then shock there system.therefore i would have put them into a water chemistry there body is not use to and would have been criticised for that aswell.i can truly see why people on here leave the site after posting acouple things and being criticised even in the welcome area i think some people on here should really lighten up and actaully offer help not there own personal feeling as education outways critcism.there is some very nice people on here and very helpful aswell shame about the others though :roll: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I can see people fronting up to Plunket asking for their fish to be weighed and measured :slfg: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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