Clown Loach - Dying (I Think)

[chriscrozier]

Hello Everyone,

Could do with a bit of advice.

I had 4 clown loaches which were all young and small, 2 about an inch long and 2 about and inch and a half. Until now I hadn't had problems with them in the 6 months I have had them.

They all had Ich so I started to treat this (with half the dose as they are scale-less), the next day I got up and the two bigger ones were dead, with the other two lying on them which was quite depressing.

Anyway, I removed the dead ones and inspected them, they had ich, but also some of their back tail fins were missing. I would say they looked rotten rather than nibbled.
Since then the other two are acting very worrying. The fins are now the same and they still have ich. I am scared to treat this with meds as I am afraid it might have been them that killed the other two. I have raised the temperature slowly to 85f as I seen somewhere that Ich cannot reproduce at this range? Also I have been doing 25% water changes for the last three days to try removing some Ich eggs.
They now hide all day lying on their sides, have ich and at a guess fin rot. There top fin is totally flat. They look in a very bad way, and are clearly very distressed.
I know they should be kept in groups of 4 or more but I doubt this is the problem, and I don’t think adding more would help I think it would make things worse as they might get whatever mine have, or even give them something else. Plus I think this is what caused the initial problem, as I obviously didn’t quarantine the new fish I recently put in for long enough. If I did things correct and quarantined new clowns I think the ill ones will already be dead by the time their ready.
Water parameters are normal, as I’ve been testing every day to make sure this is the case.
Any ideas on what may be wrong/what I can do?

 

[Man of fish]

Well clown loach are very prone to ich when stressed, so if you wouldn't mind giving us these things, we could help you better:

Stats (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate)
Tank size
How long has it been established
How'd you cycle it
Other stock
If you change the filter media

And actually all loaches are schooling fish and need groups of 6+ not 4.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You might want to have a read here: http/forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16721

 

[aquariumart22]

When I had clown loaches and the other fish in the tank had ich, I turned the temperature up they died within days and looked the way you described. Just had one in my 75 gallon and got a new heater the temp went up like 5 degrees and it died after having it forever.

I left the temperature where it was one time though and treated with medication and ich went away and the clown loach was fine. So possibly turning the temperature up could be the cause IME.

 

[chriscrozier]

Thanks for the comments everyone,

aquariumart22 I only just turned the temperature up over the last day, before the two died and other two got into the condition their currently in. They died the morning after i put the medication in, so my guess and this is a guess is that they died because of this. As i say i used half the dose, as required. I have treat these with this before when i first got them and not had a problem.

Two Tank, thanks for the link, quite useful information in it, though I new quite alot of the it already.

Man of fish;

they are in a 100 litre tank at the minute, i know this is not as big as they need but they are only young and very small and i have a 260 litre one for when they get bigger which i currently need to cycle. The tank has been set up for at least 8 months i would say, if not a year. I cycled this one correctly i.e. fishless cycle over about 6 weeks. Other stock includes 1 blue fighter fish, 3 dalmation mollies, and a pleco (not sure what type but he is brown with oranage spots all over). There is all 1 platy (he actually came with the clowns as the fish shop accidently caught him with the clowns and i didnt realise till i got home).

I clean the tank once a week at about 25% using a syphon, I feed them live food once a week and flakes the rest of the time with the occasional pea. I have never really used carbon as both my lfs have advised me there is no need for it, is this true or not? As for the sponge, the way i got taught to change it (which ma or may not be correct) is to scrunch it up and if it doesn't go back to it shape thats when I change it. I have had these clowns for many months, and otehr then ich when i first got them they havnt really had any problems until now. I hope this is everything you need to help me out.

Thanks again everyone

 

[Man of fish]

Ok, well hopefully they get better, and once they do move them to the big tank ASAP so they aren't stunted. Don't change the sponge even if it doesn't go back to shape. It's what has all the good bacteria!!!

 

[chriscrozier]

http/i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t398/chriscrozier/d1569a9f.jpg[/IMG][/img]

this will give you an idea of what they look like, this is the worst one and looks pretty bad

 

[Man of fish]

One of the reasons may be because you have gravel and they're in way too small of a tank. Clown loach really need at least about a 5 ft tank, and sand. Their delicate barbels may have gotten infected and cut on the gravel, then the stress led them to ich. The tank is also very small, and they may end up stunted.

 

[aquariumart22]

I agree with Man of fish.

Mine wasn't that bad but close. I used Jungle brand Ich treatment and started off with half a dose. Then the next day, as on the bottle, did a water change and dosed a little more. I did almost a full dose the third day and he started looking better. Then just did regular water changes everyday for two weeks after it was visibly gone to be safe.

I was worried about dosing too much since they are scaleless, but whatever I did worked. I figured hes going to die if it doesn't work so i kept upping it each day.

I hope they make it!

 

[chriscrozier]

Hi thanks, I put the meds in again and will do water change again as well.
There actually swimming about together today which is good.

Ill start the cyclng of my new tank today and go get some sand as opposed to more gravel which I was going to use.
Once they are better and tanks ready ill swop them over.