Clown Loaches In Brackish
- Thread starter Freedom18
- Start date
Teelie
Fish Aficionado
Not true. Even "medicinal" levels of salt are dangerous for Clown Loaches.
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
I asked Bob Fenner about this once, since I was rather skeptical, too. Apparently it *is* true, and in the wild clown loaches have been found in brackish water. On the other hand, I have no idea what the salinity level was where they were found, and whether it is common or even normal behaviour for clown loaches to enter brackish water. I personally would not recommend keeping them in brackish water, and prefer to think of such reports as aberrant rather than routine behaviour.
Salt isn't particularly toxic to clown loaches, and (temporary) low salt concentrations are preferred as the way to kill whitespot on clown loaches than copper and formalin based medications, which are definitely fatal.
Cheers, Neale
Salt isn't particularly toxic to clown loaches, and (temporary) low salt concentrations are preferred as the way to kill whitespot on clown loaches than copper and formalin based medications, which are definitely fatal.
Cheers, Neale
Funny that you ask this. A local store had 3 brackish tanks and kept their Clown Loaches in them. I thinking the SG was around 1.008 or something. I asked a few times why but the sales drones would always say "becauset they are brackish fish"
Absolutely they can. I've had a 45 gallon brackish tank for almost 3 months now that a small group of three has thrived in. We have a very nice comunity of supposed non-brackish fish mixed with brackish fish. Brackish fish such as puffers and knife fish, mixed with typical fresh fish like clown loaches and barbs.
3 months isn't really enough time to judge if a tank is a success or not... plus you didn't list how high the salinity is in your tank, which would be great to know. Maybe you should do a tank journal on this? I'd be really interested to see how your loaches do in brackish water!
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
This is interesting. It's perhaps worth mentioning before we get _too_ excited that lots of barbs, loaches, catfish, even tetras occur in brackish water. While I'm not 100% convinced about clowns, horseface loaches certainly do occur in brackish water. Among the barbs are ticto barbs, and from the tetras are x-ray (pristella) tetras. In the catfish camp there's all kind of stuff. Only this week scientists "discovered" that one species of Pangasius actually goes into the sea for part of the year.
On the other hand, randomly sticking fish into brackish water is something to be careful about. Up to about SG 1.003 you're unlikely to cause problems with hardy fish because that amount of salt will have minimal effect on their ability on osmoregulate. But once you go above that, and especially at the SG 1.005 level, freshwater fish are going to get stressed. A lot of stuff is going to be distinctly short-lived if maintained at this sort of salinity. Most freshwater fish will die quickly at the SG 1.010 level preferred by monos, scats, etc.
The split broadly falls between primary and secondary freshwater fish. Primary freshwater fish (carps, characins, catfish, knifefish, arowanas, gouramis, etc.) tend to have very low salt tolerances. Secondary freshwater fish (killifish, cichlids, livebearers) tend to have high salt tolerances. A third group, known as peripheral freshwater fish that are basically freshwater members of otherwise marine families (puffers, gobies, sleepers, halfbeaks, needlefish) have very high tolerances. Of course there are lots of exceptions and extremes. Guppies can be adapted to seawater, but platies can't; Corydoras don't like salt all that much, but their close relative Hoplosternum litorrale is very common in brackish water. So it pays to do some research first.
There's plenty of empirical evidence from laboratory experiments that large deviations from the normal salinity a fish is exposed to causes long term harm, even death. Sure, not every singly species has been tested, but where lab work has been done, it's pretty conclusive: fish live longer and stay healthier at salinity levels close to those they experience in the wild.
Cheers, Neale
On the other hand, randomly sticking fish into brackish water is something to be careful about. Up to about SG 1.003 you're unlikely to cause problems with hardy fish because that amount of salt will have minimal effect on their ability on osmoregulate. But once you go above that, and especially at the SG 1.005 level, freshwater fish are going to get stressed. A lot of stuff is going to be distinctly short-lived if maintained at this sort of salinity. Most freshwater fish will die quickly at the SG 1.010 level preferred by monos, scats, etc.
The split broadly falls between primary and secondary freshwater fish. Primary freshwater fish (carps, characins, catfish, knifefish, arowanas, gouramis, etc.) tend to have very low salt tolerances. Secondary freshwater fish (killifish, cichlids, livebearers) tend to have high salt tolerances. A third group, known as peripheral freshwater fish that are basically freshwater members of otherwise marine families (puffers, gobies, sleepers, halfbeaks, needlefish) have very high tolerances. Of course there are lots of exceptions and extremes. Guppies can be adapted to seawater, but platies can't; Corydoras don't like salt all that much, but their close relative Hoplosternum litorrale is very common in brackish water. So it pays to do some research first.
There's plenty of empirical evidence from laboratory experiments that large deviations from the normal salinity a fish is exposed to causes long term harm, even death. Sure, not every singly species has been tested, but where lab work has been done, it's pretty conclusive: fish live longer and stay healthier at salinity levels close to those they experience in the wild.
Cheers, Neale
I love how in these forums all the pet store employees are called things like drones. If you were making minimum wage at store where it was "just a job" you'd probably be a drone too.
nmonks
A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from
Yes and no. Simply because staff are paid a relatively low wage doesn't mean they are free to hand out bad information that can lead to dead fish and unhappy aquarists.
Consider a Michelin starred-restaurant versus a hamburger bar. The people doing the cooking are going to be paid different salaries, no question, because the value of their products is so different. But does that mean that only the Michelin star restaurant needs to cook food that is safe and healthy? Is the hamburger bar allowed to employ staff who don't wash their hands, don't keep the food fresh, and don't cook things thoroughly? No -- simply to be in the business of catering, at whatever level, staff have to provide a fundamental level of health and safety. You wouldn't put up with food poisoning from a hamburger bar simply because it was a cheap place to eat.
I don't see why things should be any different in pet stores. If someone is selling livestock, they should be able to provide a basic level of information. It isn't asking all that much from them, given that for the most part all they need to know is whether the thing has special water requirements or not, will eat flake food or not, and can be kept in a community tank or not.
Cheers, Neale
Consider a Michelin starred-restaurant versus a hamburger bar. The people doing the cooking are going to be paid different salaries, no question, because the value of their products is so different. But does that mean that only the Michelin star restaurant needs to cook food that is safe and healthy? Is the hamburger bar allowed to employ staff who don't wash their hands, don't keep the food fresh, and don't cook things thoroughly? No -- simply to be in the business of catering, at whatever level, staff have to provide a fundamental level of health and safety. You wouldn't put up with food poisoning from a hamburger bar simply because it was a cheap place to eat.
I don't see why things should be any different in pet stores. If someone is selling livestock, they should be able to provide a basic level of information. It isn't asking all that much from them, given that for the most part all they need to know is whether the thing has special water requirements or not, will eat flake food or not, and can be kept in a community tank or not.
Cheers, Neale
Not saying I like it . Just the way of the world and ppl get food poisoning from crappy restaurants every day. Stay away from Swiss Chalet.
fry_lover
Fred and the Fredettes
yeh lets make sure LFS employees get their act together, dont matter how much they being paid, they took the job, no one held a gun to their head
EDIT: sorry, my bad, my post has no relation whatsoever to the thread topic
EDIT: sorry, my bad, my post has no relation whatsoever to the thread topic
poopsydrew
"CodeMonkey"
I agree with you Neale, but I would like to say I dont appreciate being called a drone (not by you Neale). And I also dont "hand out bad information" Besides some of it came from you and your articles
It is true a lot (and I mean a lot) of lfs employees dont know crap but there are some of us out there. I also think it is the businesses fault for not training or hiring qualified employees.
-On the brackish note, I would like to add our store keeps all of our tanks at 1.008 and I hate it. We lose all kinds of fish to what I beleive to be the salinity. Cories never last very long and neither do our clown loaches. I beleive the reason for the salinity level is to keep away disease as they figure they can lose some fish here and there but an outbreak through the sumps would be devastating.
-I hate running salt in our store because customers have a hard time understanding (listening) to me about slowly and carefully acclimating them to freshwater, if thats what they are going to keep them in. I am sure our customers have lost most of their fish because of the shock from brackish to fresh.
-Overboard-please dont make judgments about all lfs employees as there are some really good ones that want to help.
-Fry lover-I wanted the job because I love the hobby and fish in general, and I love sharing the hobby with others, my act is together but thanks anyway.
Drew
poopsydrew
"CodeMonkey"
Nope, I completely agree with you. Most arent, however, I think people love to jump and blame the lfs employees for a lot of things. My point was just that there are some of us educated in the field that want to help people
Drew
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