Clown loaches and Discus

[weird]

The crazy guys of the fish world ? How to keep the ying-yang of discus and clown loaches in perfect harmony ? Let the discussion begin ... I will start , only with the short but passionate love of both Discus and loaches, and very little experience of both ! I guess it comes down to , "dare to ask the question".

I moved my 6 clown loaches (ranging from age of 1 1/2 to 1/2 year old loaches) to my 4 x2 x2 foot discus tank. It is bare bottom, not what I thought ideal for loaches, but moved over with them every hiding place they used before , 2 elongated caves and a rather large "fake" hollow log. The 2 elongated caves proved too isolating, so I removed them for only the fake cave, in which they were also able to observe feeding times. They also took to a large driftwood piece.

The most important lesson I learnt:

Give them a hiding place that

1. Gives them a place to hide,

but most importantly

2. Allows them to observe the happenings of the tank.

Otherwise if they will hide and miss alot of feeding opportunities.

If they can hide and observe the tank, they will sneak out and in from the hiding spot to grab food at most feeding opportunities.

Overall I have found large discus and loaches to eat side by side , and neither to be fussed by each other. Even when clowns go into their feeding frenzies and they go nuts (which in my tank is large crop dusting circles repeatly ... if you focus on them u will go dizzy ... the discus largely ignore them).

Anyway, great thing about loaches is that they don't mind the high temps.

BTW this is the worse picture of my tank but I assure you every one in here is very happy, but it shows a sneaky peak loach in their fav fake log in the middle.