Help - Skinny Botia Sidthimunki

[Bloo]

I bought 4 of these about 6 weeks ago. From almost the very beginning 3 hung out together and one on his own. No territorial thing or anything I could see, so I didn't give it much thought.

But tonight I gave them a good check over (how have I not noticed this sooner?!) and the one looks positively anorexic ! The pictures below does not show it well, but the skull is sunken and the body incredibly skinny - almost shrivelled. It seems to dart about etc. as usual, and there are no physical signs of illness on this fish anywhere whatsoever - or on any of the other fish. Nothing on the gills either - even though it might look a bit pinkish on one or two of the photos - it's just the light.
All active, healthy fat and eating like piggies.

What's up ? What do I do ?

2 Pics of skinny loach

Some pics of the 3 mates

 

[The-Wolf]

The only thing you can do bloo
is seperate him so you can ensure that he gets food.
I'd feed bloodworm every other day and brine shrimp
on days that he is not having bloodworm. I'd also try JMC
catfish pellets (one or two at night) as they are high in protien.

however be prepared that he may not make it.

 

[Bloo]

Coolio thanks I will try and do that. But honestly - he looks so much worse even than even in the Photo It really doesn't look good at all. I should perhaps investigated right from the beginning why the other 3 didn't hang out with him. It's extremely unlikely that he never got his fair share of food though - the tank is incredibly docile and the loaches are the most boisterous fish there. The other bottom feeders consist of 2 banjo catfish (well they hardly move), a twig catfish (hardly moves either) and some amano shrimp. Oh and a group of Sterbai Corys - but they just cruise around gently and share any food very happily.
The loaches are always the first chaps to tuck in and "shove" the others away.

Oh well, I'll give it a try with the separation and see what happens......

 

[millym]

bloo is there not some sort of loach wasting disease that clown loaches are prone to caused by worms or a parasite??? im sure ive read about it somewhere but sadly the brain is not too good after night shift & no sleep & i cant remember much more.( although i amy be thinking complete rubbish here so apologies if i am) sorry but maybe if you have a look through fish diseases online & hopefully someone with more knowledge will come along soon. theyre beautiful loaches but he does look a bit 'posh spice like'.

 

[Bloo]

You're right Milly. There is the skinny disease that crossed my mind. I didn't mention this as I wanted to see what responses were. I'd be gutted if it *was* "skinny disease" - as from what I understand, it's nasty and requires drastic action

I'm horrified by this quote:

Whenever you see a fish that is wasting away, as opposed to having external wounds or parasitic skin problems like ick, always assume that it is caused by an internal parasite.

If it is skinny disease, then why are none of the other fish affected/infected ? Or is the time period too short ? (6 weeks).

I (might be wrong) but I was under the impression that skinny disease is mostly seen on wild imports - where as I "think" these chaps come from Europe bred fish farms. Though suppose that doesn't mean they can't contract internal parasites......

Guess the little chap will be whisked out asap into quarantine - it was too late at night to do that last night and bring down QT from the loft. But I'll do it tonight

Edit: Phew, but reading that article further (treatment with Levamisole hydrochloride it seems, so guess I should speak to Mikev about his recent thread) it says:

Fortunately in many cases an infected fish will not cause the rest of your fish to get sick. Oftentimes the worm life cycle is complicated and involves multiple hosts like snails and birds. However, seeing as how none of us may know exactly what is inside the guts of the fish, it is prudent to always keep new fish in quarantine.

 

[mikev]

Bloo,

It is quite possible that it is an internal parasite infection. ALL loaches, not just clowns, are very prone to worms. Your Sid situation seems very similar to my situation with Kubotai's: I added four back in November, one refused to grow and one grew very slowly.

An attempt to feed the smallest better failed; and the autopsy revealed a tapeworm. I probably speeded up his demise by separating him. After a few futule attempts with anti-parasite food on the other small polka-dot, I treated him with levimisole a few days ago and this had a very dramatic effect:

Within a few hours of the treatment, the loach switched from his permanent scavenging to active feeding and lust for bloodworms. I don't fully understand how a skinny 1" fish can eat at least five bloodworms every feeding, but he does it somehow. The strangest part was the reaction of other polka-dots: they used to ignore him totally, but once he started feeding and shoaling with them, they interpreted him as a new fish, so he also got a fair share of chasing.

I'm fairly convinced that often loaches that do not show overt "wasting" symptomes still carry internal parasites (if interested, I can give you a link to my treatment experiments). Therefore, it makes sense to treat all.

(I added three more polka-dots yesterday...and they got their levimisole the moment they were acclimated. Just in case.)

HTH

 

[Bloo]

Thanks for your feedback Mike. Yes, please could you email or pm me that info - greatly appreciated. No clue though where I'd find levimisole in the UK though - it seems they are a lot stricter here on "drugs" than in the US. And how do you administer it ? And will it affect my other fish / shrimp in the tank ?

 

[mikev]

Thanks for your feedback Mike. Yes, please could you email or pm me that info - greatly appreciated. No clue though where I'd find levimisole in the UK though - it seems they are a lot stricter here on "drugs" than in the US. And how do you administer it ? And will it affect my other fish / shrimp in the tank ?

Link PM'd.

I know it is *possible* to find levimisole in the UK.
(And I wonder if you can simply order from a US online store?)

Administering: depends on what form you get it in. The soluble power (for pigs) is easy to use: you dissolve it in the supplied bottle, then one bottle cap amounts to about 5g treatment. No negative effect on other fish noticed (and no confirmed negative reports I've seen). Shrimp you'll need to check, but I strongly suspect no effect.

PS. Most FAQ's will say that you must do a huge water change and gravel suc after the treatment. With the kind of parasites you are likely dealing, this is not needed.

 

[Bloo]

thanks Mike. Really wish I didn't have to deal with this. But I'll give it my best shot. I'll browse around the web (and read that link you gave me properly) this weekend and take action.

I am concerned about the shrimp though and will have to check how they will take/respond to the meds.

 

[mikev]

Very welcome.

Also: I got mine from www.petsupplies4less.com; i think they ship overseas. Specifically:

http/petsupplies4less.com/i_016013-1_Lev...er+20.17+gm.php

In any case, the dosage I quoted above was for this type of packaging: 20g dissolved in 500ml bottle.

Good luck.

 

[millym]

this is probably not much help but i believe there is a tropical pet vet ( who apparently does deal with fish) in sheen sw london somewhere........dont know the exact address i read it on a forum somewhere i'll try & see if i can find it for you. i believe they are expensive but you might be able to convince them by phone to write a prescription for you without stressing the little guy by having to trail him in there....you never know. i know that it may be a lot of £££ for a little fish that didnt cost loads but ive thought about it in the past when ive been desparate for help & nothing was working.
( i seem to be the master of giving snippits of, but not really a lot of, help today dont i??!!! sorry)

 

[Bloo]

Got home tonight and it's too late. The little dude is dead as a dodo.

Luckily I had a surgical scalpel blade, so opened him up. There was absolutely nothing (literally) but bare bone covered with skin. Which made it quite hard to open him up and the blade just grated against bone No parasites whatsoever that I could see with my naked eye on/in the little creature.

Now what to do ? Just observe the rest of the tank, or treat "just in case" - though I'm usually quite against treating for anything "just in case".

Edit: milly, just saw your post. Thanks anyway, but too late..... good to know for future reference and when I have a moment, I'll phone the local vets and find out who/where this vet is.

 

[millym]

sorry to hear about your loach rip
its so frustrating that its such a struggle to get proper treatment over here isnt it!!!

 

[mikev]

Sorry to hear this.

Not every waste case is caused by internal parasites -- bacteria and genetics are other causes, but the majority of them IMO are. A small worm is easy to overlook unless you are looking under a microscope, and the worm also may be dead few hours after the fish died -- no food. Nearly total absence of blood/tissue points toward something like a tapeworm. (In the case of my dead polka-dot we saw no blood on the autopsy, and it took a magnifying glass to locate the tapeworm).

I'd still suggest at least one anti-worm treatment for every loach, ideally immediately after you buy it. The minimal statistics I have on my loaches (see the PM) makes me think that about 1 out of 3 carries worms. And some of them are capable of reproducing in the tank leading to major wipeouts (seen this too, recently, and it was baaad).

 

[Bloo]

Thanks Mike. Yeah in this case I was thinking the same thing re: treating. I'll update this thread once I've tracked down the meds and treated.