Hi, my mum really wants to buy 4 clown loaches if we get a bigger tank, although i think we have to soon

anyway, i have heard that clown loaches can stress out the male if he has eggs and can cause him to kick them out or eat them, is this true?
another point is, could the clown loaches eat the eggs themselves?

i do love clown loaches but i don't really want to stress the BNs, if i put lots of caves and hiding places in the tank would the clowns be distracted and not bother the bristlenoses


Thanks for any help

James



PS: would it be better to breed a pair of BNs in a 125 litre tank on their own or in a 6 foot tank with over 620 litres and use the 125 litre as a grow out tank, i am just thinking of moving the male from one tank to another and the water change to trigger the spawning, the male and females would be in a community tank, would a cold water change stress the other fish, also if the fry are in a 6 foot tank i would never find them would i?

Hope this is not too confusing... i will probably do another post on the breeding cave section that is more detailed...

Thanks

James

no, simply no. breeding bristlenose and clown loaches are worst enemies. Loaches, particually clown loaches have evloved to eat things in shells. This mean snails most of the time but nothing is more tempting than a bristlenose egg...yum yum!! they will be into that cave so fast it will make your head spin. THe only issue is that the male will not take kindly to this, they will fight, they both have nastyu spikes...you can see where this is going. there have been way too many reports of deaths resulting from breeding bristlenose killing clown loaches or the other way around.

You can keep them together, just not breeding.

Seriously dude, buy my book its all in there

in regards to the PS. you dont want fry in a display tank. for the simple reason you need to basically destroy it when you collect the fry. they why breeding and grow out tanks are always so simple.

Thanks, i shall try to persuade her to let me keep the other tank and use it, or get a slightly bigger one and keep the original as a spare.

Thanks again

James

Well Im shocked . Ive always mixed Bn and clown loaches, my Bn have had about 10 -15 batches of eggs with no problem from the clown loaches

maybe some people are lucky, i don't really want to take the risk, and besides, it shouldn't be a problem if i am allowed to use the tank we have now for a breeding tank, the clown loaches would be in a bigger 6 foot tank....