Re: Sick Clown Loach need help.

[Dick]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:37:25 -0500, nobody
> wrote:

>I have a 50 Gallon tank with 3 Clown loaches. The smallest one which
>we have had since it was a baby and now about 2 inches long, is
>swimming upside down and looks thinner than normal.
>
>I'm not sure if i can do anything for it to recover. I've owned Clown
>Loaches for over 10 years, and I've never sucessfully been able to
>heal one.
>
>Any suggestions?

I now have 11, should have been 12. In the year and a half I have had
them I had 6 that were delivered (air express) with ich. I ended up
killing 4 of those. The other 2 are well today. (I finally decided
healthy fish don't get ich and quit treating the community tank. I
only had one tank at that time. )

I had one runt who was not doing well in the 75 gallon community tank.
I moved it to a 10 gallon tank that had lots of snails. It still was
sluggish and did not seem to feed. Once more I moved it to my
hospital tank that had a couple of fish in it. The runt thrived, swam
around a lot, aggressively eating the flake food. I figured he was
now healthy and I needed him to eat the small snails in the 10 gallon
tank. He dug a cave and I never saw him. Back to the hospital, back
to healthy behavior, back to the snail tank, back to digging a cave,
dead. End of "runt."

Upside down swimming does not sound good. Do you have a hopital tank?
Worth a try if you do have one. Mine has no sand and at the time no
plants. I did put an ornament in with it. The openings were large
enough so I could monitor his health, but he ended up not going in
there.

dick

[Dick]

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 19:44:25 -0500, nobody
> wrote:

>I've done the Hospital tank thing with Clown Loaches in the past, and
>I've always endedup with dead loaches.
>
>They are so hard to cure. I did some searches on google for thinning
>loaches and I dont think its what they say it is.
>
>My 3 Loaches have been in this same tank for the past 5 years with
>regular water changes.

Five years! I am impressed. How long were they? I see statements of
their becoming up to 2 feet in length. I haven't had my 11 Clowns 2
years and none are more than 5 inches, mostly 3 to 4 inches.

I really felt sorry when I read how long you have had your Clowns. It
would make me very sad to lose my fish so mysteriously after 5 years.
I have one Black Angel that I watch closely. She has had occaisional
thingies on her body over the 2 years. Fortunately they have all
cleared, but I know how concerned I get over her health.

> No new fish added. So I dont see how it could
>have contracted a diseas that I found on Google that would cause the
>one to get thinner.
>
Did they eat? The runt I mentioned didn't eat until I moved it.
It is so hard to guess when the fish have been in the same isolated
tank for so long. From time to time people mention an "old tank
syndrome." I wonder if there has been a dissolved solids
accumulation? I can see all the stuff that is in the gravel when I
prune my plants. I hope that the frequent partial water changes keep
that under control.


>I will setup a seperate thank and see if that will help.
>
If there is a solids water problem, maybe you should do a half fresh
and half old tank water at first. Then rely on normal water changes
to dilute the old water. There is a thing with osmotic pressure
problem involved with the old tank water versus fresh water. If the
old tank pressure is much different than the new tank I understand
this can kill fish.

I would suggest doing a Google on "Old Tank Syndrome."

I would be interested knowing how this works out for you. There is a
lot of difference between my 2 years and your 5 years. You may be
involved in a problem I will not see for a few years.

dick

>
>
>>Upside down swimming does not sound good. Do you have a hopital tank?
>>Worth a try if you do have one. Mine has no sand and at the time no
>>plants. I did put an ornament in with it. The openings were large
>>enough so I could monitor his health, but he ended up not going in
>>there.
>>
>>dick