The Clown Loach is only found in Indonesia (specifically Borneo and Sumatra). They live in murky rivers where the water may be moving quickly or stagnant. The waters are densely vegetated and there is plenty of food for the feisty clown loaches that feed on the bottom. They are omnivorous and often enjoy eating local crustaceans or nibbling on plants in the water. Borneo and Sumatra are on both sides of the equator, so the temperature is quite high for most of the year. The temperature of the waters in which the clown loach lives is around 74-85 degrees Fahrenheit (23-29 degrees Celsius). They live in large groups and densely populate riverbeds. It is in the nature of clown loaches to hide and they love to hide in spaces they can barely fit in or dig into the riverbed with only their heads sticking out.
How can you use this basic information to design a comfortable aquarium for clown loaches to live in?
First of all, clowns love having places to hide and lots of greenery. You can build small caves out of rocks or buy cave items from the shop. You can use old plastic pipe, or that old model you used to play with when you were younger. You can use almost anything to make a hiding place for a clown loach, but you want to make sure it doesn’t have any sharp edges. Since they enjoy getting into areas that are probably too small for them to get into, you don’t want them to get caught on sharp edges and injure themselves. As for the vegetation, almost anything will do, but if you want to go all out, you can use plants that grow in the rivers of Borneo or Sumatra; for instance, Cryptocoryne wendtii, Pista stratiotes or Nuphar japonicum. The older clowns get, the more they like to nibble on vegetation, so stick to fast-growing, robust plant species.
Clown loaches will sometimes burrow into the substrate of an aquarium, so make sure there is nothing sharp in the substrate as this can hurt them. It’s also a good idea to create a current in the tank that clown loaches can swim against. They are fast swimmers and can grow to be quite large (up to 12 inches or 30 centimeters). That said, you may need to upgrade to a larger aquarium. For adult clown loaches, a 125-gallon (540-liter) tank is recommended. This is one of the reasons buying a clown loach is a long-term commitment. They can live more than 10 years!
After the installation and organization of the clown fish tank, the problem of water quality still remains. They are very sensitive to water quality and get sick much more easily than most other aquarium fish. Your natural waters have a pH that tends to be acidic (pH = 5-7) and a water hardness between 7 and 12. After achieving those properties in your tank and maintaining the water temperature between 74-85F (23-28C ) your clown the loaches should be quite happy.
Don’t forget that clown loaches get lonely very easily and when they get lonely they become stressed, their growth can be stunted, their colors can fade (don’t confuse this with their colors “fading” with age) and they can die youths. So always keep your clowns in a group of at least 5 and they should be as happy as peas in a pod.
The process of analyzing a fish’s natural habitat and then trying to mimic it in an aquarium is known as biotyping. It is an idea recommended by many aquarists.
