So my mom has a community large tank with clowns in it. For a while, the clown loach dubbed Marmalade was thriving in her group. But, a hurricane struck and she was the only loach to survive the power outage. Even after we got the tank back and running again, we wanted to wait for a bit before adding more loaches. She was very happy even on her own, seeming to be more open. She was brightly colored, and simply schooled along side the danios. We added more clown loaches for her anyways, the LSF only had two though. They were a bit bigger, but not much. She was about an inch, being young, and they had only a few millimeters on her.
She was frightened by them, and we had assumed that she just needed to get used to other loaches again. But after nearly two years, things have only been changing for the worst. Marmalade is still her measly inch, and now, the others are double her size. Needless to say, they pick on her.
While they are a brilliant deep orange and black, with dark, crimson fins, she is a light orange, with faded red fins. She's a bit thin, predictably.
Since the shoal is only three, should my mom add more, smaller loaches to even out the hierarchy, or should she just sell the two bullies?
One strange thought was to put Marmalade in my tank for a while. This could never be its permanent home. I know how large clowns get, and my tank is only a 14 gallon. But maybe she could fatten up a bit in there and catch up with the others a bit more. The only thing in there is a fat, happy shoal of 5 cory cats. She's merged into schools of other species before, and they aren't too far off. Honestly though, I don't think this would work out too well.
Please give us suggestions. We don't want to keep Marmalade in this situation. My mom and I love seeing all the fish happy, and seeing the once cheerful and happy fish so shy is heartbreaking and I'm guilty for even suggesting we even add more in the first place.
She was frightened by them, and we had assumed that she just needed to get used to other loaches again. But after nearly two years, things have only been changing for the worst. Marmalade is still her measly inch, and now, the others are double her size. Needless to say, they pick on her.
While they are a brilliant deep orange and black, with dark, crimson fins, she is a light orange, with faded red fins. She's a bit thin, predictably.
Since the shoal is only three, should my mom add more, smaller loaches to even out the hierarchy, or should she just sell the two bullies?
One strange thought was to put Marmalade in my tank for a while. This could never be its permanent home. I know how large clowns get, and my tank is only a 14 gallon. But maybe she could fatten up a bit in there and catch up with the others a bit more. The only thing in there is a fat, happy shoal of 5 cory cats. She's merged into schools of other species before, and they aren't too far off. Honestly though, I don't think this would work out too well.
Please give us suggestions. We don't want to keep Marmalade in this situation. My mom and I love seeing all the fish happy, and seeing the once cheerful and happy fish so shy is heartbreaking and I'm guilty for even suggesting we even add more in the first place.
she may be stunted.
