Botia Histronica

[LongS]

I got four of these two days ago, and unfortunately after the first night i found one dead. I put the four into a very small 20 litre quarantine tank to basically keep an eye on them and make sure that none of them had any diseases. The filter i was using was fully cycled as i was using it along side another internal running on my main tank. i tested the water twice in the first 24 hours, and even did a 40% water change just to make sure there was no slight trace that the test hadn't detected.

Anyway after i found the dead one i decided to move the remaining three into the main tank, to join the one Histronica that i already had in there. Two look perfectly fine, mixing it up and joining in chasing the guppies and basically doing what fish should be doing, although one hasn't moved from the top of the filter, just sits there and doesn't move. Only when chased away by the others does he move.

There is basically no symptoms i can see except the three of the loaches seem to be breathing quickly even the two healthy looking ones. Tested the water and its pristine. I'm getting worried and am not sure what i am doing wrong, they were all acclimatized for nearly an hour before i put them in.

A little advice and reassurance by an expert would be great. I'm flummoxed.

 

[Baccus]

Breathing heavily could be due to not enough oxygen in the tank for the number of fish. Is the tank temp pretty high? Warm water holds less oxygen than cool water. Also with the filters does the surface ripple with water movement. I know people say that airstones etc dont add any more oxygen to a tank but I have found my fish do better with stones added, the stones can help with water movement at the sufrace as the bubbles burst and hlep prevent totally still areas in the tank. I have some fairly thick live plantings and I find an airstone helps keep water moving around the plants.
Have you done a test and water change on the main tank? The filter bacteria may not have caught up yet to the new amount of fish waste.

Thats about all I can think of for help.

 

[LongS]

Nah not heavily stocked or too warm, about 27 degrees. there is plenty surface water movement too, two internal filters creating lots of surface agitation. I can't understand what is wrong, the problem has to be with the new fish as the death occurred in the quarantine tank. I just have my fingers crossed for the remaining three in the main tank.

Is it possible that they could just be stressed from the amount of movements in the past few days? They came in from Germany on the thursday where they were then put in the shops tank until saturday, i then picked them up, put them in the quarentine tank until sunday then moved them into the main tank. Stressed maybe?

Should i add some aquarium salt incase it is the beginning of ich? or could it even be gill flukes? would the heat and salt method work on flukes too?

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Call me strange, but I'm a little confused here... You quarantine the new loaches (a good thing) to make sure they are healthy and they will not pass anything onto your main tank fish, a loach dies (I'm sorry for your loss) and then you add the other quarantined loaches to your main tank (a bad thing).

I sincerely hope for your's and the fishes' sake that you have not just exposed your main tank to something contagious.

 

[LongS]

Yes i did. The reason being this; in the small quarantine tank the water quality is obviously more unstable. I thought at the time of the death this may have been the reason (even though the tests showed no reason to suspect it) so i removed the remaining fish (possibly panicked) and added them to a stable well matured tank to try and prevent them going down the same road.

Now when they were in the small tank, it was hard to observe their behavior as they weren't really moving around, just sitting at the bottom not even swimming.

Now they are in the main tank 2 of the loaches are swimming around acting like loaches should, whilst one is hanging around on top of the filter.

If i had a larger quarantine tank i would have happily kept them in for two weeks to monitor their health, but i just felt a tank of this size is far too unstable in terms of water conditions and possibly contributed to the death.

So about salt treatments, i have treated ich successfully in the past with this method, would salt also treat for gill flukes?

 

[LongS]

Well today is looking much more promising, all the loaches are grouping together 'playing' and basically looking like happy loaches. I did however see one individual flashing off the gravel twice so what i'm going to do is dose the main set up with kusuri wormer plus. Have used it once before and seemed to be ok.

One question i do have that maybe someone can help me with is should i do half doses of this stuff as i'm using on loaches and a catfish? The medicine is Flubendazole based.

Thanks in advance

 

[Baccus]

If the treatment says to use it at half dose for Tetras, Fry or loaches then use it at half dose. Some medications are no good for catfish/ Plecos so just watch out for that (sorry can't recall which active ingredient is bad for the cats and plecs, I read that on the label and didn't touch the medicine again because I have all three catfish, loaches and bristle noses).

 

[LongS]

Just used a full dose, did a bit of reading and its supposedly ok with loaches and cats, everything looks much healthier in there at the moment.