Dwarf chain loaches eating fry

[Tamra]

Does anyone know if dwarf chain loaches will eat fry? I have hillstream loaches that breed all the time and I don't want them to be eaten. I want the dwarf chain loaches to eat the snails 🐌, or at least keep the population at bay. What do you think?

Thank you

[CJs Aquatics]

As a general rule of thumb I tend to believe almost any fish that can fit a fry in its mouth will eat them. However I doubt the chain loaches will have a drastic impact on the fry population they will probably be busy chasing the easier to eat snails. I would give it a shot, perhaps they will cull any weak or deformed fry for you and leave you with a healthier population even. I would expect some fry casualties however I just doubt it would be drastic. 

[Odd Duck]

I’ve never kept dwarf chain loaches, but I guarantee they will try to eat the fry.  I have less cory fry showing up in my 100 G tank since adding Kuhli loaches and they have a smaller mouth than dwarf chain loaches.  Loaches are hunting, eating machines that love nothing better than snuffling around the bottom and grubbing around in the substrate where hillstream fry would be.  You might have some escape long enough to get too big to be eaten, but nowhere near the numbers you would get without the loaches in there.  I do still get random cory juvies that magically appear but I used to get overrun with bronzes before the loaches were in there.  I think I’ve only got 1 Kuhli loach left and won’t be replacing them since I’d like to get some trilineatus fry out of the tank.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

On this subject @Odd Duck do you know if they eat shrimp adults? 

[Odd Duck]

I’m not certain but I think adults might be too big for them.  I’ve never kept dwarf chain loaches so I couldn’t say with any certainty.