Hello,
Does anyone know anything about clown loaches? 
A crazy thing happened to me today.  I went to Petsmart to pick up my new oranda and I also decided to get some plants.  Well, I saw a piece of driftwood in one of the tanks with a plant growing out of it. So the girl picked it up and put it in a plastic bag.
I came home and put the plants, and the driftwood plant in the quarantine tank.  Put my lovey new oranda in the tank after letting her acclimate to the tanks temperature, went about my business of putting things away.
Went back to check on the oranda and shes sitting at the bottom of the tank on the bottom in the corner and her tail fin is shredded!!!
I'm like wtf?
Pretty soon I see this orange and black striped thing poking out of the driftwood.
So I cover the driftwood hole with a net and bring it out of the water and try to shake out the fish in the driftwood!
HE WOULDN'T BUDGE!!!
So I ended up putting my new oranda in a different tank.  So now I am treating her with salt and melafix.
So now I have a clown loach in the quarantine tank. 
The pet store is almost 2 hours away.  There is no way I'm driving back to the store for awhile.
I looked in 2 books and they don't say much about them except they are lively and like to swim in shoals.
So I'm guessing that if they don't live in a shoal they pick on other fish???  Are they aggressive and territorial?
Can anyone please give me some good solid experience and info about the clown loach.
Thank you so much!

How is your Oranda going, hope he/she will recover soon. What is his/her name?
Is the fin badly shredded or only nipped? Lucky goldfish fin tissue grows back fairly quick.

Can you post pics please?

Aw hope everything is ok Minde. Hanna already covered everything about the clown loach, I'd get rid of it if I was you, of course in a humane way, which I have no doubt you will. Try to make some money from it

I woudn't get rid of it if you can keep it in the tropical tank. It will eat the snails you may introduce with new plants. Clowns grow rather slowly and they can be much fun to watch too.

Our Yoyo now lives with 10 Neons and 6 Glowlights, also 1 BN.

No, Minde, he's not but very similar. He's a YoYO-Loach, they have much the same character, eat the snails, but Yoyo won't grow that big.

Do you have loach pellets for him? And live blackworms?

He'll be fine, it was an unplanned move for him and a surprise for you.

Mindemae: Dont worry about botia (in my place clown loach known as botia). My friend keep 2 clowns together with gf about two year and so far is ok.  Clown is peacefull, shy and schooling fish. They like to hide, play air buble and swim aroud.
Clown need friend, if you have only one, this fish will stress and more agresif.
So, if you want keep this fish, just give him a partner, more than two clowns is better.

Minde he'll be fine temporarily. Tony doesn't grow fast, so you slowly can prepare your darling hubby for another tank.
Just let him know MTS is not curable.....it is only getting worse....

What I read about it is that they make it when they are content and pleased. It can be fairly loud and sounds like a lock clicking. They also swim sidewise or on their back and up and down. Sometimes they can lay on the bottom of the tank on their side looking at you. When this happened the first time I was so scared but then Yoyo swam to the top and started clicking, as if he said to me: HAHA I FOOLED YOU.

To be honest I didn't realize a grunting noise yet but I may need to pay more attention and listen more carefully. Maybe Tony grunts because he is completely alone?

When you'll go to the store to get him a companion, try to get some live blackworms too, Tony will love them.

Now I am just curious how to tell the gender of loaches 

Actually I didn't, must try it the next time.
Only noticed in the last 3 days he's going nuts swiming up and down in circles and then chasing the wafer I throw in. Think he needs one of his own in there too, this means I'll move Kate, the BN into the big tank and get Oyo for Yoyo. 

Gosh, thank you!!!
that helped quite a bit.
Tuesday we are going back to Petsmart to return the demised goldfish and I am plannning on getting another clown loach for Tony.
Thanx for the info!

cool! so Yoyo has 2 yoyo loach friends?
I really think my tank will only to be able to handle 1 friend for Tony, since they get big eventually.

one thing though - even if you think you can't keep more than two clown loaches, if your tank is relatively big/middle sized, I'm pretty sure you can. Clown Loaches take a LONG time to grown bigger, and they don't get as big as they would when in the home aquarium

I got them in the pet shop, but maybe not all pet shops supply them. I bought them in a smaller one, privately owned, where we got the new tank. Also we buy most of our fish there.

But if you cannot find any, Tony and Tigger will be happy with bloodworms too.

 

I'm hoping to get my clown loaches some snails soon as a treat!

aww, that's so cute Nossie!