Clown Loaches - New Queen of the Tank?

[W_Oz]

So ever since my pictus cat (Pim) died just over a week ago there's been a marked change in the behavior of the dominant Clown Loach in the tank. She's begun behaving rather agresively towards the other clowns and is even beating up on the smaller pictus cat making the "click" noises that these little gems do and I've even seen her expose her spines while chasing/biting the other fish.

I'm not entirely sure if the elder cat was keeping the loaches in line and "show'in them who's boss" or what that was keeping everyone in check and not fighting with each other like this. It does have me concerned about the implications of what the "great death" event has caused. Prior to this the Pictus Cat was arguably king of his domain being the largest fish in the aquarium.

[Lady Hobbs]

Funny little critters, aren't they? I saw mine only fight one time in the 1 1/2 years I've had them and it was between just two of them. I finally went and dropped some food in the tank and they forgot what they were fighting about. LOL Could be your pictus was ruling the bottom feeders and now a new leader is being picked?

[W_Oz]

THat's what I'm guessing, though if this violence isn't settled out soon I'm tempted to place the offending fishies into another aquarium and let 'em settle it where they won't bother anyone else.

Another thing I'd considered would be rearraging the plants/decor to sort of start at a neutral point for them again... I dunno.

[angelcakes]

i do excactly the same thing as lady hobbs........if 2 of mine start squabbling then i put some food in its all forgotten about in seconds,
but rearanging your plants and decor might work:19:

[Lady Hobbs]

You might try adding more caves for them too. I have pvc pipes in my tank for them to hide in. Hope they are getting along better today.

[W_Oz]

I've been wrestling with how to give them more hiding spots for a while now since there aren't that many sources of hard cover in my aquarium. The biggest issue I have is how to work more stuff into the tank when there's already a lot of stuff on the sand and not much in the way of more "free" real estate. I'm heading to the hardware store today to buy some stuff for the GF's DIY filter, maybe I'll pickup a few extra ABS/PVC bits and some Krylon or something. I've been looking all over for some more drift wood that I might toss into the tank to keep up the river-esque look I'm going for but there's never any good pieces of any size that I might use for this purpose.

ooooo... Or instead of painting it I could tie the java moss from my now destroyed moss wall over it.... yeah, I think I'll do that.:18:

[angelcakes]

You might try adding more caves for them too. I have pvc pipes in my tank for them to hide in. Hope they are getting along better today.
ive 4 big coconut caves and they are excellent for clowns if you dont know how to make them you can always buy them cheap of ebay:19:

[Lady Hobbs]

The moss won't attach to the smooth pipe tho. Maybe you could add some rock caves and tie the moss to that?

fun4pets (http://myworld.ebay.com/fun4pets/)http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/s.gif As suggested my angelcakes.

edited: Can't seem to find it now but this store had them.

[W_Oz]

Do you think if the surface of the pipes were roughed with some coarse sand paper that it might glom on? Or if the pipes were covered with aquarium safe silicone then coated with sand for the moss to attach to?

[Lady Hobbs]

Sure do. I have mine covered like that in sand. Let it dry for two days.