Clown Loaches

Hi JWC, unfortunately they'll get too large for your tank. I've been fancying some clown loaches myself but my 180 litre is still too small for them.

Your Rio 125 is presumably 125 litres, but the dimensions of the tank can be just as important as it's water capacity - the fish profiles on here state a minimum tank length of 120cm whilst Seriously Fish says 180cm!

I've used a similar principle of a variety of different fish, rather than 2 or 3 feature fish and the largest I have is a Dwarf Gourami.

Hope this helps.

They are really nice but can be somewhat high maintenance - you can generally only have 1 male (the females aren't as colourful) and they are prone to a particular disease (this fish keeping business is never straight forward!).

I think clown loaches probably are the closest freshwater equivalent to the marine clownfish (unless someone can think of alternative?) - were you considering the clown loach purely for the 'nemo' aspect or are you aiming for bright colours generally?

Cichlids are generally considered the closest group of freshwater fish in terms of overall colour to marine fish but unfortunately they generally aren't ideal as first fish as they can be quite demanding! Otherwise, livebearers come in a huge range of colours and patterns but they are fairly weak genetically as a result of the intensive breeding practices used to get their colours.

Don't let me put you off though - a good community of tropical fish can look stunning and be relatively low maintenance at the same time.

The nemo effect was kind of wanted but I don't think it's going to cause a problem if it doesn't come off. The 5 band barb does look very nice though and definatly one I will concider seriously.

I think looking forward if they do want some proper ones then I should do it properly in another tank with the real salt water ones once I've got myself comfortable with a freshwater tank.

Same for me. No way I will change the tropical tank now. I'm looking forward to having it fully up and running.

Quote from: Jwc on September 29, 2014, 07:58:03 PM

I think looking forward if they do want some proper ones then I should do it properly in another tank with the real salt water ones once I've got myself comfortable with a freshwater tank.

Sounds like a wise approach. I'd like a marine tank in the future as well but even when I do get around to it, it will probably be in addition to my tropical tank, rather than instead of.

Same for me. No way I will change the tropical tank now. I'm looking forward to having it fully up and running.

Me too! I've just spent an enjoyable half hour reading a blog of how somebody set up a marine tank. It's called Michelle's marine diary and it's on this page. Grab a coffee.......