What to feed clown loaches

I bought 3 clown loaches about 9 months ago when I had a snail problem.
They did a number on them and now they've been eating the reguluar pellet
and flake food I feed my other fish (mainly tetras, platy's etc). I also
notice they like to chew to the algae wafers I throw in occasionally for my
plecos.

However, last night when I was doing my bi-weekly cleaning, I was looking
down from above in the tank while vacuuming with my water python and I
noticed one of the clown loaches was literally paper thin side to side.
There's no meat on his bones at all. The other 2 look fine.

Is it that they're not getting the proper nutrition after all from the other
stuff and it's just showing on one more than the others ? Or maybe this one
has a parasite or something.

Any ideas ?

Shawn wrote:
There's no meat on his bones at all. The other 2 look fine.

He might have "skinny disease", which I'm afraid is fatal. My CL love
bloodworms, give those a try.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he

My 3 clowns are in with 2 angels,12 platies,2 cories/ottos in 65g. They eat
frozen (thawed first)bloodworm,brineshrimp,tubeflex,krill,daphnia ,flake all
rotated. They adore interpret tablet food which I can break into small
pieces and put on the gravel. I find it's hard to get food past hungry
platies/angels. My clowns will swim up and get food as it arrives, but
appear to prefer eating lower down. I find adding food one side, high up and
my clowns know to come to the other and I add food lower down for them. It
took a while for me to get it right for them. There is a good loach site,
which recommends you feed clowns 3 times a day as they get bigger. It even
shows a tube being used to get food lower down for clowns.
"Shawn" wrote in message
...
I bought 3 clown loaches about 9 months ago when I had a snail problem.
They did a number on them and now they've been eating the reguluar pellet
and flake food I feed my other fish (mainly tetras, platy's etc). I also
notice they like to chew to the algae wafers I throw in occasionally for my
plecos.

However, last night when I was doing my bi-weekly cleaning, I was looking
down from above in the tank while vacuuming with my water python and I
noticed one of the clown loaches was literally paper thin side to side.
There's no meat on his bones at all. The other 2 look fine.

Is it that they're not getting the proper nutrition after all from the
other stuff and it's just showing on one more than the others ? Or maybe
this one has a parasite or something.

Any ideas ?

algae tablets and cooked zucchini are favourites of my three chubby clown
loaches

Subject: What to feed clown loaches
From: Victor Martinez
Date: 1/26/2005 5:45 P.M. Central Standard Time
Message-id:

Shawn wrote:
There's no meat on his bones at all. The other 2 look fine.

He might have "skinny disease", which I'm afraid is fatal. My CL love
bloodworms, give those a try.

--
Victor M. Martinez

Ok..explain this "skinny disease" and what it really is.
Tanks. = )

TYNK 7 wrote:
Ok..explain this "skinny disease" and what it really is.

In the loaches.com website they call it either skinny disease or wasting
disease. I think it's a bacterial infection that is pretty much
impossible to recover from. I haven't heard of any clown loach that had
it and survived. The only sign of it is that your loach starts getting
skinny and then dies.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he

Do you have the web address for the good loach site?


"Mary Burns" wrote in message
...
My 3 clowns are in with 2 angels,12 platies,2 cories/ottos in 65g. They
eat frozen (thawed
first)bloodworm,brineshrimp,tubeflex,krill,daphnia ,flake all rotated. They
adore interpret tablet food which I can break into small pieces and put on
the gravel. I find it's hard to get food past hungry platies/angels. My
clowns will swim up and get food as it arrives, but appear to prefer
eating lower down. I find adding food one side, high up and my clowns know
to come to the other and I add food lower down for them. It took a while
for me to get it right for them. There is a good loach site, which
recommends you feed clowns 3 times a day as they get bigger. It even shows
a tube being used to get food lower down for clowns.

www.loaches.com Mary
"Sarah Navarro" wrote in message
.net...
Do you have the web address for the good loach site?


"Mary Burns" wrote in message
...
My 3 clowns are in with 2 angels,12 platies,2 cories/ottos in 65g. They
eat frozen (thawed
first)bloodworm,brineshrimp,tubeflex,krill,daphnia ,flake all rotated.
They adore interpret tablet food which I can break into small pieces and
put on the gravel. I find it's hard to get food past hungry
platies/angels. My clowns will swim up and get food as it arrives, but
appear to prefer eating lower down. I find adding food one side, high up
and my clowns know to come to the other and I add food lower down for
them. It took a while for me to get it right for them. There is a good
loach site, which recommends you feed clowns 3 times a day as they get
bigger. It even shows a tube being used to get food lower down for
clowns.

Subject: What to feed clown loaches
From: Victor Martinez
Date: 1/27/2005 8:23 A.M. Central Standard Time
Message-id:

TYNK 7 wrote:
Ok..explain this "skinny disease" and what it really is.

In the loaches.com website they call it either skinny disease or wasting
disease. I think it's a bacterial infection that is pretty much
impossible to recover from. I haven't heard of any clown loach that had
it and survived. The only sign of it is that your loach starts getting
skinny and then dies.

What about feeding antibiotic flake?
I ask because it appears my lovely Claude may have this.
I've had Claude and Joaques for a while now. J. has always been more colorful
and robust. He's actually kind of a chub.
C. has always been not so colorful..not pale, just not as vivid as J.
Within the past 2 weeks Claude has become thin...where Joaques is still robust
looking.
I'm left wondering is this going to spread to J? Does it spread by predation or
just contact?
I have another large Clown on hold at my LFS because with this situation if
it's catchy then I would buy more than just the one and keep them all in
another tank (after quarantine), until Claude is either fine or gone. Same goes
for Joaques.
I am so upset about this. They were do healthy and robust for so long. They
came in the shop clean and have been for many months. They're best set Clowns
I've had. So friendly and are always begging for food with their heads right
out of the water.
I'd really hate to lose them both, but losing Joaques would hurt a little more,
as I am very attached to him. He's the big ham. As bad as the Angels and
Bettas..always has to have to his body right in front of my face when I'm
looking into the tank.
As of now, I am treating with antibiotic flake because I had no idea what I was
dealing with.
Oh...I had always though "wasting away" disease was a TB thing.
I know TB symptoms mimic several other diseases....so I guess I'm now off to do
some researching.
= p ---- Tynk pouting for my Claude.

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 18:18:50 -0500, "Shawn"
wrote:

I bought 3 clown loaches about 9 months ago when I had a snail problem.
They did a number on them and now they've been eating the reguluar pellet
and flake food I feed my other fish (mainly tetras, platy's etc). I also
notice they like to chew to the algae wafers I throw in occasionally for my
plecos.

However, last night when I was doing my bi-weekly cleaning, I was looking
down from above in the tank while vacuuming with my water python and I
noticed one of the clown loaches was literally paper thin side to side.
There's no meat on his bones at all. The other 2 look fine.

I would consider that the "2 look fine" as encouraging. If it was a
tank condition problem or feeding problem, I would expect all 3 to
suffer.

Fish do get sick. Like people, they can live in the same home and
have different health. I got a shipment of 7 Clowns that all had Ich.
At the time I only had a 75 gallon community tank. I had no
medications. It took close to 2 weeks to get Ich medication. By that
time 5 of the 7 were really looking weak. I did the medication cycle,
but the 5 didn't look any better. I finally disposed of the 5. The
other 2 responded to the ich treatment so I kept them even though they
still had a few white spots. I now had some experience and with hind
sight, I realized none of the other 60 fish in the tank got the ich.
So I quit the medication and did some aggressive water changes. The 2
Clowns are with me today and there has never been another problem.

By the way, the dealer was very sorry. He confirmed he had a shipment
that had Ich and asked me to be patient. He had a new shipment, but
wanted to observe them rather than take the chance of sending any more
sick Clowns.

Is it that they're not getting the proper nutrition after all from the other
stuff and it's just showing on one more than the others ? Or maybe this one
has a parasite or something.

Any ideas ?


Can you isolate the one in a "hopital" tank?

dick