Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Clown Loach



Data Sheet

Scientific Name: Botia macracanthus
Family: Cobitidae
Origin:Indoesia
Adult Size:10 inch / (25cm).
Social:Peaceful schooling fish
Lifespan: 50+ years
Tank Level: Mid, bottom Dweller

Minimum Tank Size:20 gallons
Diet:
Omnivore, eats most food, but prefer live food.
Breeding:Egglayer
Care:Intermediate
Ideal pH: 7.2-7.5
Temperature: 77-86 F (25-30 C)
Tank setup:

Some plants and clear area for open swimming. Rocks for hiding when shy.
Sexing:
Males can be identified by the tail, which is larger and hooks inward rather than pointing straight out from the body. Females are smaller and more slender.




Description:

The body of the clown loach is moderately elongated and laterally compressed. It has an arched back, an almost straight belly profile, and four pairs of barbels. The barbels located on the lower jaw are very small. The head is large and the mouth faces downward, with thick fleshy lips. The clown loach has an orange and black striped body, with the strips pattern being highly similar to the tiger barb.Unlike the tiger barb which tends to be highly aggressive, the clown loach is highly peaceful. Its beautiful striped body, red fins and active behavior has made it one of the most popular loaches. The pectoral, ventral, and caudal fins are yellowish with black markings.Unlike many loaches who are only active at night, the clown loach is very active during the daytime hours.

Habitat/Care:

Peaceful with its own and other species, it prefers to have companions with which it will form a school. It do best in groups of 3-4 or more, and having more campanions will greatly help to ensure its survival. It is a relatively slow feeder, and care must be taken to ensure that it has food to eat, especially when mixed with faster feeders such as danios.

Rocks and roots suitably placed in the tank will provide shelter. A good tank setup for a Clown Loach should include ample shade, plants (plastic or real), hiding places and other peaceful fishes. Make sure the environment is not too bright. Provide shade from tank lighting.

Water quality is critical for keeping clown loaches healthy. Care should be take to keep water very clean, well aerated, and warm.

Mixing with other fishes:

Because Clown Loaches come from rivers and streams, they are accustomed to having other fishes and plants in their environment. Not having plants and/or other fishes can cause Clown Loaches to become stressed and to go into hiding. Despite their large size, these peaceful fish can be mixed with smaller peaceful fish such as neon, cardinal or rummynose tetra. Some people have noted that the larger clown loach does prey on smaller fish especially when they are sexually active and mating (see breeding below).

Diet:

The clown loach requires green fod in their diet, such as scalded letuce or boiled garden peas. They are partial to chopped shrimp, cod roe, tubifex and bloodworms.. but they tend to prefer live foods.. especially worms such as tubifex or bloodworms. They are also found to make clicking noises when excited or eating.

Breeding:

Clown loaches have to be quite old and at least 7 inches (17 cm) before they are sexually matured. It has been noted that a few weeks before spawning, the clown loaches will change their behaviour and start eating live fish as their only accepted food. The females will grow very fast on this diet, and will be almost doubled in girth by the time of spawning. On the night in which the spawning took place, the clowns loaches will swim entwined in each other and making clicking sounds. Some records have indicted that the female loach can lay as many as 500 eggs in one spawning. Clown loaches, like most other fishes, do eat their own eggs, so it is recommended that the parents be removed at this time.

The fry should be fed liquid fry food for the first two weeks, after which they may accepted crushed flakes. Frys grow relatively fast, to 2.5 cm/ 1 inch in 6 weeks. After that the growth rate slowed down.

Note: A new method has been found by Mitchell McKenzie to accurately sex the clown loach. To read about it, please visit here.

Illness:

Loaches are particularly prone to ick infestations, and the clown loach is no exception. The clown loach should be watched closely whenever new fish or plants are added to the tank. In the event that the fish is infected, do remember that loaches, like catfish, are very sensitive to some medications - often the dosages should be half of what is recommended. .

Photo Galley

Got a photo? Contact me.










References Cited:

1. Shirlie Sharpe, Clown Loach [Online], Available http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/loaches1/p/clownloach.htm
2. David Goodwin (2001), The Aquarium Fish Handbook, D & S books, England.
3. Loaches Online, Clown Loach (Botia macracanthus), [Online], Available, http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/botia_macracanthus.html
4. Clown Loach, Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, [Online], Available,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clown_loach

Jinjin And Sasa Adventure in Qian Hu Fish Farm



This section list the adventures of Jinjin and Sasa as they embarked a vist to Qian Hu Fish Farm in Singapore.

Qian Hu is one of the largest fish farm in Singapore, and is a public listed company in the Singapore Stock Exchange. It has branch in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and China. Qian Hu carries a wide range of fishes, tank and fish products. In paritcular, it specialize in koi and dragonfish, but it has an impressive collection of all types of local freshwater fish. It is my personal opinion that Qian Hu fish are often overpriced, so buyer beware.

Qian Hu fish farm is located in 71, Jalan Lekar, Sungei Tengah. This location means that without a car, it is difficult to reach the place. It is a 20 -30 mins walk from the nearest bus stop in sunny and hot (30-34 C) Singapore. Luckily Qian Hu directors are smart and provide a free shuttle bus to and fro from Chao Chu Kang MRT. The bus leaves every 20-30 mins on weekends.

  1. Dragon Pond
  2. Gift Shop
  3. GoldFish Shed
  4. Koi Shed
  5. Entrance
  6. Golden Wall (dunno what is this)
  7. Packing Area
  8. Quarantine
  9. Farm Shed
  10. House of Dragon
  11. Argo-Education Center



Teacup stingray :D


All shapes and colors betta


Qian Hu is huge. The Bus stop me at the visitor shed, and being inquisitive, the first thing I saw are the breeding ponds marked 1 on the map.



Dragon Ponds - where the fishes are breed
Right - signboard showing the
directions in the farm.

Next, I walk around the Goldfish (3) and Koi Shed (4). There were many varieties of fishes, both big and small. Of interest to me is the koi (really cute baby koi) and the huge catfishes. I happened to pass by the Agro-Education center, and to my surprise and delight, they have indoor streams which are full of guppies, mollies and platies. You can take as much as you like within 30 mins for SG$5/=. This price includes a small plastic tank for your new fish, and if you ask nicely, they will throw in some food for your fish as well.

s baby koi pond. Lovely

1
Mollies, Platy and Guppy Stream. All you can catch in 30 mins for $5/=.

The House of Dragon (10) boast of a wide variety of dragonfish. Pity no photography allowed. Also, the packing area (7) and quarantine area (8) are off limits.

The gift shop is nice, but is tiny. There is one more thing of interest to aquarium owners: Qian Hu does sell a wide range of used tank very cheaply (at around $20/= - $50/= for a 48" tank). But they also sell new tanks (which are priced at $400 and up), and will aggressively promote the new tanks.

We left the fish farm tired but happy

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Apologies for the long downtime



For regular readers, I apologise for the long time of not updating this blog. My PC crashed, and being broke does not help me. Besides, as an IT professional, it is not ethical nor professional to use company's PC for my blogging. Besides, I am swarmed with work at the office, and have no time to blog anyway - the list of to do get longer with everyday. The only alternative is to save my monies and pray hard I save enough as soon as possible.

After 1.5 months, I finally saved enough monies to buy the harddisk for my PC and reconfigurating everything, I finally get the PC to work, and finally can blog at home. It is awesome to have a PC at home where you can blog at will. I missed all the blogging and chatting with my girlfriend sasa, and believe me, when my PC crashed I was pretty annoyed and very very frustrated - all my communications information is saved there. While I can blog, the sound card drivers and everything is gone, and I could not listen to music on my PC. Darn, must now save for a sound card!

To celebrate my return, I will be updating the adventures of jinjin and sasa with a new visit to Qian Hu Fish Farm (coming soon on 18 Jun 06). Then I will do some research on clown loaches and update it as well (coming soon by 25 jun 06).

For those readers who like this blog, thank you for your kind patience and bearing with me when my PC crashed.