Barbaric Trophs

[Sailor]

I tried adding a few clown loaches to my troph tank as I have them in with my fronts. It was like pirana, they just decimated the clown loaches in about 30 secs. The clowns were about 1 inch and my kiku's are about 2 inches. I have never seen the like. And they say trophs are plant eaters. My fronts don't bother with them.

[Melody]

How horrible for you :no: . If I don't say it enough around here, I am no Cichlid expert. However, something similar has been known to happen with some Goodeids. Apparently they'll attack and kill Cory's. Something about them triggers that reaction. Yet even the more aggressive Goodeids don't otherwise shoot to kill their tankmates.

I know it doesn't help much, but it is certainly intriguing behaviour.

[CACAdmin]

Sorry to hear that... obviously totally unexpected and when it's awful when something like that happens right in front of you and there's nothing you can do about it.:( Definitely a tough lesson to learn. Thanks for posting about it as it will be a heads-up to others who might have been considering doing the same thing.

[Sailor]

They didn't kill the clown loaches but they got beat up real bad. I had to take everything out of the tank to get the loaches out. I put them in a q tank, hopefully they make it. They got roughed up pretty good. The trophs pinned them to the sand and started to dive bomb them, I've never seen anything like it. Now the trophs are all stressed from having to take the tank apart to save the clown loaches, hopefully they don't get bloat. I will wait a day or 2 before I feed them.

[Melody]

Keep the lights out too - that seems to be one of the most effective ways to de-stress a fish. Good luck with them & the Clowns.