Is My Clown Loach Ill?

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CatsLoveFish

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We have a fairly large clown loach in a 29 gallon tank. I just took a good look at him and his belly seems much rounder / bloated than normal. He normally has smooth, full sides, with no observable roundness. 
 
He also appears to be breathing rapidly, gills moving quickly and he is "shimmying from side to side. He usually sits quite still when he is in his territory.
 
We have had him for about 3 years and he has always been healthy and thriving, gets along fine with his tank mates, etc. I am concerned about his bloated belly.
 
 
What are your water parameters? (Ammonia, nitrite being the more important ones)
 
Have you added anything recently such as other fish or chemicals? What is your water change schedule?
 
Tankmates? What do you feed?
 
I'm not sure if this is something stunted fish do or not, hopefully someone else can say on that. This tank is way too small for him
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he is in a tank with a few danios, neons, and rasboras, a chinese algae eater and a rainbow shark. All the nitrates / nitrites are in safe or ideal ranges on the test strip. There are lots of live plants in the tank.
 
we feed him Hikari sinking wafers or Thera+A  by New Life spectrum. Water changes once a month. Did a change today. Test was taken before water change, so I know that the levels were safe before the change.
 
These have been his tank mates for quite a while with no fish ill. We lost one tiny otocynclis (sp?) but that was a few weeks ago. We have not added any chemicals or anything. I try to leave it alone as much as possible, and so far this has worked well, as I think the live plants help a lot. It has been a very healthy tank for over a year.
 
DOes that mean your test strip doesn't have an ammonia test on it? Some do, some don't, but since ammonia is the primary toxin in a fishtank (because the fish themselves produce it), it is essential. With nitrite, there is only one safe or ideal reading, and that is 0ppm - If your test strip is indicating anything other than 0ppm, it is not safe or ideal. With nitrate, there is a lot of discussion on what is safe and what isn't. And the issue with test strips is that they aren't wonderfully reliable.
 
How much water do you change at a time? THe issue is that water changes really ought to be done weekly, in order to keep nitrate at a sensible level (in my terms that's anywhere between 5ppm and 60ppm). The problem with monthly changes is twofold - if you don't change enough water, it allows nitrate to build up to dangerous levels. If you change too much water, the sudden change from relatively high nitrate to relatively low nitrate can shock the fish.
 
My guess is that nitrate levels have built up too high, but it's only a guess at the moment, because you haven't given actual levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I would strongly suggest that you invest in a liquid test kit, these are much more reliable than the paper strips. I recommend the Salifert or Nutrafin ranges. Many people use the API, it's the most popular one by far, but its nitrate test is also hit&miss, because of the need to ensure that a powder reagent in the liquid is fully dissolved. It very often gives false-zero results.
 
The other alternative, in the short term, is to get your LFS to test it for you, but make sure they tell you the actual numbers of the results, not just "fine" or "safe" or whatever.
 
HTH.
 
How big is the Clown Loach exactly? You may find that a lot of questions ask for specific numbers and we may bombard you with them since a fish is ill. I am lead to believe that Clown loaches require other Clown loaches because they do far better with company. They also grow to 12 inches I believe and 29 sounds too small. If he is stunted then this could cause issues as well. 
 

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