How many of you keep Clown Loaches in your planted tank?
Have you had any problems with them bothering your plants?

Clown loaches are very strange things. More often than not they will decimate the plants, sometimes in a matter of days. Oddly enough sometimes they won't touch them.

You take your chances but I'd be inclined not to put them in.

James

Depends a lot of your goal and scape design, building methods.
If it's heavy driftwood, java fern, open spaces with sand, lower light, Anubias, other tough things to move or uproot, yes.

But a 6-10" loach is a large critter.
And they should get that big in a few years if properly cared for.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I've been fairly lucky with mine so far. Not much uprooting. But they do like to punch the occasional holes in leaves (leaves a slight V shape hole). My biggest is about 5" currently but I'll be putting them soon in an 8' planted tank so they can grow to there full potential I hope. Substrate is sand, which I fear might be easier for them to dig up plants, time will tell. I am trying to stick to heavy duty & well rooted plants for the most part, mosses, ferns, crypts. Should be planted soon and I'll give the plants a chance to establish before introducing the clowns.

I have three of them in my planted tank. Two of them are around 3.5-4" and the other is probably closer to 3". They've been in there just about since the beginning of this tank (~8-9 months). I have some nice driftwood that they hide under, but many times I see them out and about. Interestingly enough, (despite the concerns people expressed) I have a group of cherry shrimp in there that had grown from 10-15 to up over 100. I've never seen the loaches touch them, but I feed everyone well and there are plenty of hiding places (although the shrimp are out and about many times as well).
It's something to ponder. Maybe fish have different personalities and temperments (within species), like people do. If that's that case, perhaps I just lucked out.

-Ryan