clown loachs

[david priestley]

six months ago I bought two clown loaches and only one made it so last
weekend I bought four more to keep it company but so for two of them have
dead. have you got any ideas why?
all my other fish seem ok (4 platys, 4 mollies, 3 rainbows, a pleco, 2
angles and, corys). my female Mollie even give birth to her first fry on
Monday.
for the last month I have been getting black patches in my sand with a
strong smell. I have removed all the affected sand and replaced it with new
sand, could this have caused the deaths?
I have heard in some of the other messages posted something called itch,
what is this?
any help would be gratefully received xx

[Gill Passman]

"david priestley" > wrote in message
...
> six months ago I bought two clown loaches and only one made it so last
> weekend I bought four more to keep it company but so for two of them have
> dead. have you got any ideas why?
> all my other fish seem ok (4 platys, 4 mollies, 3 rainbows, a pleco, 2
> angles and, corys). my female Mollie even give birth to her first fry on
> Monday.
> for the last month I have been getting black patches in my sand with a
> strong smell. I have removed all the affected sand and replaced it with
new
> sand, could this have caused the deaths?
> I have heard in some of the other messages posted something called itch,
> what is this?
> any help would be gratefully received xx
>
>
>
Hi David,
Sorry to hear about your losses :-) I, too, keep Clown Loaches. They are a
wonderful fish!!!! Of the 7 that I have owned I lost one quite quickly - he
became very quiet and then went very grey before dying - I believe that this
was a parasite. The other 6 are thriving but had Ich following the
introduction of my two larger ones (Itchy and Scratchy). Ich is relatively
easy to recognise - it looks like the fish has fine grains of sugar on its
body. It is treatable - there are a number of opinions/methods of doing this
as you will have read in other message threads - but one thing that is
important if it is Ich is to treat the tank rather than individual fish -
when I had the outbreak of Ich it was only the Clowns that were affected and
even then not all of them. IMHO Clowns are very sensitive to water
conditions (as are a lot of fish) and the tank also needs to be a reasonable
size with hiding places. Another thing to consider is that these fish are
from the wild as they do not breed in captivity. A good source of
information on Clown Loaches, including diseases can be found here:-

http://www.loaches.com/

The black patches on the sand don't sound good. How often do you do water
changes/hoover the substrate? I've never come across this so can't really
comment but I think changing it is a good move.

Another thing you need to look at is your water quality - do you have a Test
Kit? If yes, what are your nitrite, nitrate, pH and ammonia readings? How
large is your tank?

Did you notice anything amiss with the fish before they died?

Gill

[Nikki Casali]

david priestley wrote:
> six months ago I bought two clown loaches and only one made it so last
> weekend I bought four more to keep it company but so for two of them have
> dead. have you got any ideas why?
> all my other fish seem ok (4 platys, 4 mollies, 3 rainbows, a pleco, 2
> angles and, corys). my female Mollie even give birth to her first fry on
> Monday.
> for the last month I have been getting black patches in my sand with a
> strong smell. I have removed all the affected sand and replaced it with new
> sand, could this have caused the deaths?
> I have heard in some of the other messages posted something called itch,
> what is this?
> any help would be gratefully received xx
>
>
>

I used to get black patches in my sand substrate before the presence of
plants. When I hoovered those areas the most horrible smell bubbled up.
My plants now aerate the sand substrate with their roots preventing this
from happening. I'm going to presume the black areas are full of
hydrogen sulphide. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that this may
have killed your clowns.

"Hydrogen Sulphide, A very toxic and smelly gas, that is formed in
anaerobic conditions, i.e when the gravel is to deep and contains a lot
of waste. A classic sign for it is a bad egg smell and in more serious
cases the gravel will turn black."

http://groups.msn.com/Breedingtropicalfish/terminology.msnw

Nikki

[Squeek]

Whats the size of your tank.....
Overcrowding a tank can make any fish go belly up.
Also what is your ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, and temp readings.
Are you treating the tank with anything....Clowns are scaleless and many
meds are not suitable
"david priestley" > wrote in message
...
> six months ago I bought two clown loaches and only one made it so last
> weekend I bought four more to keep it company but so for two of them have
> dead. have you got any ideas why?
> all my other fish seem ok (4 platys, 4 mollies, 3 rainbows, a pleco, 2
> angles and, corys). my female Mollie even give birth to her first fry on
> Monday.
> for the last month I have been getting black patches in my sand with a
> strong smell. I have removed all the affected sand and replaced it with
> new sand, could this have caused the deaths?
> I have heard in some of the other messages posted something called itch,
> what is this?
> any help would be gratefully received xx
>
>
>

[Squeek]

For your question regarding ich (Ichthyophthirius)
it is a parasite
look here
http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/whitespot.htm
Basically it looks like a scattering of fine sugar crystals all over the
fish
Hope that helps!!!!.
"david priestley" > wrote in message
...
> six months ago I bought two clown loaches and only one made it so last
> weekend I bought four more to keep it company but so for two of them have
> dead. have you got any ideas why?
> all my other fish seem ok (4 platys, 4 mollies, 3 rainbows, a pleco, 2
> angles and, corys). my female Mollie even give birth to her first fry on
> Monday.
> for the last month I have been getting black patches in my sand with a
> strong smell. I have removed all the affected sand and replaced it with
> new sand, could this have caused the deaths?
> I have heard in some of the other messages posted something called itch,
> what is this?
> any help would be gratefully received xx
>
>
>

[Dick]

On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:09:36 GMT, "david priestley"
> wrote:

>six months ago I bought two clown loaches and only one made it so last
>weekend I bought four more to keep it company but so for two of them have
>dead. have you got any ideas why?
>all my other fish seem ok (4 platys, 4 mollies, 3 rainbows, a pleco, 2
>angles and, corys). my female Mollie even give birth to her first fry on
>Monday.
>for the last month I have been getting black patches in my sand with a
>strong smell. I have removed all the affected sand and replaced it with new
>sand, could this have caused the deaths?
>I have heard in some of the other messages posted something called itch,
>what is this?
>any help would be gratefully received xx
>
>
Any tank that supports black mollies is pretty good in my estimation.
I have over a dozen species of fish and most of my fish woes are with
the mollies.

I have 11 Clowns in 3 tanks, they have been there about 18 months. I
too had early disaster with Clowns. I get all my fish via the
internet and overnight mail order. I received a shipment of 6 Clowns,
all with Ich. Two survived. The vendor acknowledged that he had a
sick tank and replaced the sick ones after a month or so until he had
time to verify the health of a new shipment.

I have read that Clowns get Ich easily. I noticed that none of my
other fish got the Ich even though the 6 were kept in the only tank I
had, so the Ich did not effect my other fish. Healthy fish and a
healthy tank go a long way to avoiding illness. But, even humans
living in the same house don't all remain healthy.

My point being, you may have gotten a bad bunch and you may not have
caused their illness. Guilt is such a bad habit. "**** happens!"


dick