Need Help With 20G Platies, Live Plants And A Loach That's Chasing

[Dani's Tank]

Hi everyone! I'm new here.
First a bit of intro to the tank we have.
20 gallon tank (Hood w 2 florescent lights, heather, Aqua clear 150 filter with foam and carbon insert).
Eco complete gravel with 2-4 live plants of different sizes.
Maylasian driftwood (2pieces), 1 fake ornament & 2 plastic plants.
The tank has been setup since June this year...all properly cycled and everything.

Fish: 5 platies (2 male, 2 female, 1 adolescent) 1 Ghost Shrimp, 1 Neon Tetra (Tough Survivor of org 5), 1 Bushy nose pleco, 1 clown loach (recent addition) There also seem to be a bunch of little trumpet snails...

Questions:
There are massive holes in my plants and either the fish or the snails are destroying them. I will post pics.
The clown loach was sold to us by our LFS so that he'll eat the fish - but I looked up more details later and found out that not only will he eat the snails, but he will also eat the plants, beat up my tetra and baby platy and pretty much not be suitable for the tank.

Any ideas on what could be eating or destroying the plants?? & How do i deal with the snails??
p.s. that loach is going to have to go back to the store - don't know what the idiot was thinking when he told me to buy it...

Thanks!
pic of tank at start of september when everything was fine:
http/picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Dg9KfAI0-mxEZSdXR0S2d1J2SbQ8tvuOUaQAtILw0Jk?feat=directlink

Pic of tank now....plants have been thinned out by either the snails or the fish?? :

http/picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/t0_3ExgbGOiMY4B7XgNd9FJ2SbQ8tvuOUaQAtILw0Jk?feat=directlink

Close up of plant with holes...:
http/picasaweb.google.ca/lh/photo/PngdbE1Od2DUOntrYRfGJVJ2SbQ8tvuOUaQAtILw0Jk?feat=directlink

 

[waterdrop]

Hi and Welcome to TFF!

I'm not a loach or BNplec expert so I don't know whether those fish might tear leave like that. I've not known platies or snails to do much of what we see in your picture, but I suppose I could be wrong about that.

Your leaves are showing signs of chlorosis however. They are yellowing in places and yellowing around the holes. Lack of particular plant nutrients, particularly iron (or sometimes magnesium) might be the cause of this and it could be that leaf material deteriorated, dropped off and was carried away by the water circulation.

You might try the smallest size bottle of iron supplement from the Seachem Flourish line and dose a few drops a day or you might try using Tropica Plant Nutrition Plus since you appear to be in the UK (you'd use this in very small amounts since you are not adding CO2 to the tank and since you have fish that are providing most (if not all) of the macronutrients the plants need.

Its also possible the particular plant is not an underwater plant although it doesn't ring a bell as one of those (the folks in the planted tank section would probably know.) Also, you can do a forum search on snails and run across the writeups of all the tricks with snail problems.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Dani.
It looks like an Amazon sword to me. If your plant is suffering from a lack of nutrients, the snails will indeed each the decaying matter, so will the platies. A clown loach is quite a nice fish in the right tank but can easily grow to over 4 inches long and it is not a long thin fish but a robustly built fish. The tank strikes me as a bit too small for a fish that will get so big. One of my fellow club members has clown loaches in his 160 gallon tank and they look just right in that tank.

 

[Dani's Tank]

Thanks for the replies...I am actually in Canada (I think I updated my profile ? not sure if it was before or after u read my post.) I will try to add the SeaChem supplement.

The loach I took back to the fish store and they exchanged it for a two cute guppies (Male). I will do a search on the plant forum to see if I can find more info!

Thanks.