Ckiwn loach an bristlenose fighting

[Miss Stevie Brianna]

Can anyone help please ?
I'm Stevie and new to this forum.
I had a breeding pair of bristlenose cats in a 130l tank.
I also have a bad snail problem and this was affecting the eggs and causing us to loose babies we think.
Assassin snails seemed useless to control this so I purchased 2 clown loaches.
These didn't get on an seemed to fight with my bristlenose plecs fairly quickly.
before I could remove the clown loaches my female was not moving and died the next day.
One of the clown loaches also died the same night
The male cat he is hardly moving and I'm worried he may die also
Fish were separate to different tanks as soon as i realised but unfortunately too late I'm deeply upset about this as I'm normally very careful .
I'm really not sure what to do to keep it friendly and sort out my snail problems can anyone please advise me as they are my favourite fish and I didn't want to house them in my other tank although it may be my only alternative
Thank you Stevie x

[Jools]

Hi Stevie,

The common "pest" snail, Malaysian Trumpet Snails won't affect pleco eggs being looked after by a male. Assassin snails will take a long time to get the population under control but they will. Clown loaches grow past 10" and should be kept in shoals, they will eat snails but also pleco eggs and can pester plecos. Other, smaller, loaches will eat snails but they are a risk to breeding plecos.

So, I'd suggest either persevere with the assassins or strip down the tank, sterilise it, throw out the gravel and start again. Loaches aren't a good solution in your set-up.

Jools

[TwoTankAmin]

I learned the hard way that clowns and plecos are not a great mix. They both want to hide in the same places and that usually means war. I lost 5 lovely lf alfs to my clowns to learn this lesson.

Clowns also have a secret weapon in the form a pair of switchblades they carry. These are called bifurcated Suboccular spines. You wont see them out very often, but when a fight gets serious, they will deploy them. You can see a picture of these on a large clown here http://www.loaches.com/species-index/ph ... age_medium

Over time clowns will get way larger than bristlenose, so there is no doubt about the outcome in the long run.