Please Help My Clown Loach

[watkinstribe]

Hi, I have a very poorly clown loach and was looking at some advice you gave someone else which came up when I searched on google. I only hope someone can help mine!

OK, so I have a 70 litre tropical tank with two approx 5 year old Clown Loaches, one plec and some guppies. The loaches have always been together and have always been happy in the variety of tanks we had to move them to a long time ago.

so I did a water change about 3 weeks ago, about a third of the tank and the day after one of our algae eaters went belly up, thought nothing more of it until one of our clowns started actig very strange.

They normally sit on the bottom behind a big plant we have, they are always together and always near the bottom in a shady spot. Well, on the first day he was on the top, on his own. He stayed near the top and couldn't seem to get down to the bottom. He's stopped eating, just pecking some algae off the back wall of the tank. He then started swimming nose down completely vertical. He's now lost most of his colour and is so thin that you can see his bones (?). He is still vertical and at the top most of the time and appears to be eating nothing apart from the stuff stuck to the back wall.

So at first I put them on a 5 day course of Myxazin, removing the carbon first and leaving the light off for the whole 5 days as I thought there was a blotch on his side. This didn't work. I took all my tank readings and discovered nitrates were a bit high and PH was a bit low so have been doing 10% water changes every 3 days and loading up on the stress zyme. No filter changes. Also been treating them with white spot stuff every other day on the advice of my fish shop.

After all this he still doesn't seem to getting any better! He just sits at the top looking like he's trying to get to the bottom.

any ideas at all gratefully received!!!

Katie

 

[WILDER]

The tanks way to small for 5 years old clown loaches they need 90 gallon tanks.
What are your water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.
With your tank being overstocked should be doing a gravel vac and water change once a week.


What do you feed your fish.
There a desease called skinny desease which clown loaches can get.
He sounds in a bad way and far from saving.

The nitrate reading high because lack of maintance and overstocked tank.
Also what filter are you using as it might not be keeping up with the load of fish in the tank,.


Info taken from the link.
http/www.bollmoraakvarieklubb.org/artikl...own%20loach.htm



Loss of weight or "skinny disease" is also quite common in Clown loaches. Typical symptoms are loss of weight and behaviour known as "knifeback" even though the fish is acting and eating normally. This sickness is more difficult to treat, it comes from a parasite organism (spironucleus) in the intestines of the same type that is thought to cause the so called "discus disease". I have successfully removed this disease from newly imported fish by using Spirohexol from JBL in the form of tablets. I have taken one tablet and crushed it and dissolve it in as little water as possible. I have then used discus granules which have been soaked in the solution. It becomes like a thick porridge after a short time when the food has drawn in the liquid. I then feed this to the sick fishes, after a week it looks like the sickness is gone. For the best possible effect do not feed with any other food. Flagyl (Metronidazole) also helps fight against this sickness but at least here in Sweden it is on prescription and can be a little difficult to come by.



Apart from this Clown loaches are not more susceptible than other fish, the above sickness usually occurs in fish that have been stressed during transport or subjected to other stress factors like cold water or poor aquarium hygiene. Do not buy fish that look emaciated! Well looked after fish are seldom sick. To quote my friend Elisabeth Hallberg; "the best way to avoid sickness is to keep the fish healthy".

 

[WILDER]

Swim bladder is caused by bad water quality, poor diet, injury, birth defect of the swim bladder, internal parasites, bacterial, unstable temp.

Was he skinny before he stopped eating.

 

[Athena]

So does the loach have whitespot disease aswell as being skinny (i.e. covered in white, salty grains)?

If so, then this would explain his lethargy and weight loss as they can quickly go downhill with whitespot disease. Some fish can battle through whitespot several times and come through it well, but clown loaches always seem to find whitespot a tough one to beat, unfortunately.

Can I just ask, when you did that last water change 3 weeks ago, did you remember to put dechlorinator in it? And did you get the clean water temp as near to tank temp as possible to avoid stressing the fish?

Stress can cause whitespot and various bacterial problems in fish. The fact that they are in just a 70litre tank can't be helping matters, really. As Wilder says, they need much more room than that at their age and size.

Regards - Athena

 

[WILDER]

Whitespot look like the fish has been sprinked in salt.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing against objects in the tank.

 

[watkinstribe]

Swim bladder is caused by bad water quality, poor diet, injury, birth defect of the swim bladder, internal parasites, bacterial, unstable temp.

Was he skinny before he stopped eating.

I wouldn't say he was skinny before, he was always paler than his mate, but they were around the same shape.

So does the loach have whitespot disease aswell as being skinny (i.e. covered in white, salty grains)?

If so, then this would explain his lethargy and weight loss as they can quickly go downhill with whitespot disease. Some fish can battle through whitespot several times and come through it well, but clown loaches always seem to find whitespot a tough one to beat, unfortunately.

Can I just ask, when you did that last water change 3 weeks ago, did you remember to put dechlorinator in it? And did you get the clean water temp as near to tank temp as possible to avoid stressing the fish?

Stress can cause whitespot and various bacterial problems in fish. The fact that they are in just a 70litre tank can't be helping matters, really. As Wilder says, they need much more room than that at their age and size.

Regards - Athena

I don't think he has whitespot, this is something the fish shop recommended because of a flaky patch I thought I saw when he became poorly. I did remember dechlorinator, but didn't put in any stress zyme which I'm now trying to keep topped up. The temperature was as close as it could be before I put it in. They're really not very big, probably three inches in length. He's now so thin he's concave at the top!

 

[watkinstribe]

I tried to upload a photo that I managed to take but for some reason the website won't let me upload it. States contact the administrator or something similar.

Does anyone have any ideas or do I just try to make the little left of his comfortable?

 

[WILDER]

Might be off better putting him to sleep if he's in bad shape.