Strange acting clown loach

[Cheese Specialist]

Hi,

I ave 4 clown loaches in my community tank. One of them is acting strangely, but not too bad.

He has a couple of marks on them and so does a smaller one. They look kind of like scrapes, not slime and are greyish. The 4" one have been acting sensitive to light since last night or so and so I've turned the light off and tried to get some pics. Watching him now, he's very active so I am hoping it's not too serious or too advanced.

He is in the 71UK in my signature and I have had him for about 6 weeks but the previous owner had him for years. They were recently treated for ich with (loach friendly) Interpet Anti-Whitespot Plus, which I treated for 21 days and it seems to have gone.

The marks have been on the loach for a few weeks maybe, but the smaller one got them later. The big one has 2 or 3 patches of this grey, most noticably on the head. There apperas to be no other physical marks and they are breathing fine.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Close up:

 

[treeh0rn]

Hello Cheese Specialist. Well I'm stumped on the marks on the body, but I noticed the (apparently) discoloured eyes on your fish. Two of my clowns died today They were also recently treated for ich (on day 3 of 6 day treatment) and I noticed that their eyes were discoloured - like a blue or dark purple colour where it should have been white.

The ones with the discolouration died but the white eyed/black pupil one lived. My lfs said the weird eyes might have been bacterial infection spread to the eyes.... so it might have been whitespot combined with infection, lucky me!!

Anyway, I hope it's just the way the photo came out, but I reckon you should have a serious look at their eyes. Sorry I cannot recommend a course of action if they ARE discoloured, may be I treated my ones too late with protozin. (PS I could only get the treatment a whole day after spotting the whitespot). My camera cannot take such close shots or I would have posted them. Good luck

 

[njparton]

Maybe its some kind of body rot (or the mark left from a previous infection)? Try a 2 week course of Melafix and see if that helps.

I've lost 2 clown loaches over the past 6 months, one to ich and the other unknown. I think they're pretty difficult fish to keep so I'd start adding something like Melafix (a natural product) to the water for a while.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

Hello Cheese Specialist. Well I'm stumped on the marks on the body, but I noticed the (apparently) discoloured eyes on your fish. Two of my clowns died today They were also recently treated for ich (on day 3 of 6 day treatment) and I noticed that their eyes were discoloured - like a blue or dark purple colour where it should have been white.

The ones with the discolouration died but the white eyed/black pupil one lived. My lfs said the weird eyes might have been bacterial infection spread to the eyes.... so it might have been whitespot combined with infection, lucky me!!

Sorry to hear about your clowns,

I am not sure his eyes are discoloured. They have a black stripe going right through their eyes so I would have thought they were supposed to be black?

I have looked at loaches.com and they have a good resource for all loaches. Looking at their photos of clowns, I have seen different coloured eyes. Many like my clowns, maybe it depends on their size/maturity?

Just as a side note, you should really be treating ich for longer than 6 days. I would recommend nothing less that 14, I treat for 21 because of the life cycle of the parasite.

Thanks for the help.

 

[treeh0rn]

The treatment I got says that they should only be treated for 6 days. (days 1,2,3 and 6). I will keep eye on the last one and treat every other day if need be. Thanks for that one... my last one now has discolouration... hope he doesn't snuff it.

You're right about the eyes though. The pictures look just like my loach. Fingers crossed. Let us know if those marks go away and what happens... my loach is looking pretty thin at the moment, even though I feed him well... he lost so much weight overnight...

There must be an expert on loaches on these forums!! Please come to our aid!!

 

[Squint]

Rapid cachexia points to the 2nd most common clown loach disease:

Skinny Disease

 

[Cheese Specialist]

There must be an expert on loaches on these forums!! Please come to our aid!!

Try here - http/aquaweb.pair.com/forums/loach/index.cgi?#75361

If the link is not censored...

 

[treeh0rn]

Okay, a belated thank you to the two of you. I'll check those sites right now!!

 

[treeh0rn]

Well, just to let you know that I've confirmed that it was probably skinny disease. My corydora also died unexpectedly and he was looking very thin.... oh well, live and learn... thank you