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The thing about clown loaches and the various other botias, and even the doradids is its not that we dont know why they click, its that the average aquarist wants to think its indicative of something in particular. Truth is they are simply a communicative species , and many of them are used to living either in shoals of their own species, or alongside other species . A click is simply a shockwave that carries well in water, and communication can be advantageous to either bring kin to food or scare them away at will, dominant fish often have the most resonant clicks, and seniority is established by using clicks without resorting to the violence. Ive seen tiger botias click to coordinate a fin nipping attack, and to scare fish immediately near them at night. The simple truth is that a sonic click has a multiple uses, and there is quite probably some variation in frequency if you happen to be able to hear it as fish do, usually threough the lateral line, but unfortunately the human brain and ear are probably not capable of recieving a recognisable difference in the sound. Its simply an addition to a repertoire that includes posturing,touching, barbel stimulation , flicking, and shoal position. Any fish that may dwell in mucky bottom water, where visibility is low with find sonic communication an advantage. The message is also very brief and only repeated with pauses in between making it very difficult for a predator of a clicking species. The clicking itself has been well studied in teleost marine fish , and clown loaches work on similar principles. The clicking has a major effect on the motor neurons on the brain, and the fish, thanks to modifications of the spine at the base of the brain are therefore capable of deciphering the information in a certain intensity of a single or group of clicks with some accuracy.In short, its a click to us, all sounding much the same, but to the fish that barely perceptible difference in intensity, and frequency,is a simple language. Some understanding will be innate, others may be learned, and in different populations of fish there may even be "language" differences.

Its communication jim, but not as we know it

It can mean anything, from, mad, bad, sad, and glad, its also ringing the dinner bell, telling someone who's boss, and telling an enemy to get lost with a sonic shock, its an invitation and a warning. It ties lives and confirms bonds, and can even be used to depress and sublimate. Not easy to decipher, any more than it is to decipher how 12 million cave swiftlets all manage to find their own offspring in a pitch black cave with others all clicking on the same audible level.

....and if you thought that was confusing , imagine having to study electric fish, for whom communication is far more complex, and much harder to monitor.

Then theres sardines, who actually communicate by farting..

Then imagine having to study how hagfish communicate the presence of a corpse in completely still bethic situations in oceans, where the current wont carry the smell to all the hagfish it attracts from hundreds of miles around. First one to explain that gets some huge kudos

Fish are weird