Suicidal clown loaches

Please help….
I’ve looked everywhere online and in to many pets stores for answers.
I have two fish tanks. The one I am having issues with has been set up and running for about 10-8 years now, my clown loaches have been living happily in the tank for about 5/4 years. Suddenly from no where, I mean no where! I’ve not changed a single thing in my tank, my loaches started to swim erratic. Bumping into the sides of the tank, plants, rocks, wood, everything and then seen to have a fit. Often fly out the water and hit the roof of the tank, sometimes get stuck in the lips of fish tank lid and then I’ll have to easy them out before they die of suffocation.

Ive tested the tank regularly and taken water to stores for a second and third opinions but no one can help identify any possible causes. The tank temperature is 27/28 degrees as loaches prefer it warmer. The tank is 250L, with 6 loaches but two killed themselves. So as a last hope I treated them for parasites because they don’t show a single sign of illness or injury until they go crazy and basically kill themselves… slowly fall to the ground after in visible stress or even hit the objects so hard they knock themselves out. Now I’m left with 4 and they seemed to be getting better and acting normal again!

Now today after 2 days of normal behaviour are starting the cycle of swimming into everything and killing themselves again!

Please any advise or if anything has experienced this before could help me! It’s horrible watching them die and having no clue or ability to save them….

None of my other fish are ill or show signs or dying.

Hello
250 liters for 4 clown loaches that will reach 30 cm long (maybe even more) is way too small. It is high stress due to overcrowding probably emphasised if they live with tank mates.

Can you provide water parameters in numbers ? And pictures of your tank ?

Thanks for a reply,
So parameters are:
nitrate 25
Nitrite 0
General hardness 6/7
Carbonate hardness 3
PH/ acidity 6.5
Chlorine 0

I got the clown loaches when I was starting my first tank and they don’t tell you how big they get but they are still about 5/6 inches each so not a problem currently.

I’ll attached a picture below for the tank, they have a corner of the tank to themselves which them normally live in and come out very regularly so don’t seem stressed until now.

All the guppies are at the top as they just thought I was feeding them for the picture. They aren’t gasping or swimming there normally.

Hope this helps a little?

Avel1896 said:

Hello
250 liters for 4 clown loaches that will reach 30 cm long (maybe even more) is way too small. It is high stress due to overcrowding probably emphasised if they live with tank mates.

Can you provide water parameters in numbers ? And pictures of your tank ?

https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/chromobotia-macracanthus/[/UR

Click to expand...

Burrell10 said:

nitrate 25

Click to expand...

Way to high. I advice below 5. Or better zero. Why 0 ? Coz it gives "you" a margin of safety.

Guppies need and prefer a water that is the opposite of Clown loach's..... just sayin'
More live plants and less artificial deco would be better

You should lower nitrates until they reach 5 and think to rehome your 4 Clown loaches in a strict minimum 500 liters giving priority to a long rectangular tank : they are big fishes that need long length to swim. Please keep in mind that stress and overcrowding leads to stress, diseases, and aggressivity.

How do you feed Clowns ?

What is your ammonia reading (the most important one of all)?

My nitrate is always between 0-25 on all checks. All the plants on the left (green ones) of the photo are real, my guppies were swapped into the tank two weeks ago as I move a rainbow stark from this tank into their previous home in my 350L tank. I swapped the shark and guppies around because I wondered if the shark had suddenly become more aggressive and was causing the clown loaches to freak and stress, then the guppies came across to stop the shark from nipping and killing them.

So the clown loach issue started before the guppies. The nitrate hasn’t changed or had a huge swing to affect the behaviour of the clown loaches. As you can see in the picture one clown loach laid on the floor which is still very small.

Any other suggestion or ideas?

@Slaphppy7 NO nitrites so very probably no amonnia. We should say ammonium as pH is a little low.

Burrell10 said:

Any other suggestion or ideas?

Click to expand...

always be suspicious of what the salesmen say... sad but true.

Avel1896 said:

@Slaphppy7 NO nitrites so very probably no amonnia. We should say ammonium as pH is a little low.

Click to expand...

I would rather know, using a test kit, than guess

Ammonia is 0

I’ve had the clown loaches for years. I don’t have a clue what to do next to try and save them. If I don’t try, they are just killing themselves. Anyone at all experienced something like this? I can’t film it as they are so fast you can’t catch anything when they are freaking out until they finally give up and fall to the floor injured, completely exhausted or knocked out.

One time my nitrites read as 0 but my ammonia read as 0.50. I would get an ammonia tester

Burrell10 said:

Ammonia is 0

I’ve had the clown loaches for years. I don’t have a clue what to do next to try and save them. If I don’t try, they are just killing themselves. Anyone at all experienced something like this? I can’t film it as they are so fast you can’t catch anything when they are freaking out until they finally give up and fall to the floor injured, completely exhausted or knocked out.

Click to expand...

I wonder if there are little parasites or bugs in the water causing them to zoom around? They may be teying to shake them off or itch

I recently added a anti parasite treatment into the tank as a last chance type of thing, after my first two died and I couldn’t find any reasons why. The clown loaches seem to get better and stop freaking out. They started to act normal again but now after a week they are freaking out again. I’ve done 50% water changes for the last three weeks to try and remove any chance of the water condition effecting the fish. Normally 30% every week, unless required to do more from the test kit.

Burrell10 said:

I recently added a anti parasite treatment into the tank as a last chance type of thing, after my first two died and I couldn’t find any reasons why. The clown loaches seem to get better and stop freaking out. They started to act normal again but now after a week they are freaking out again. I’ve done 50% water changes for the last three weeks to try and remove any chance of the water condition effecting the fish. Normally 30% every week, unless required to do more from the test kit.

Click to expand...

Some medications are very harsh in fish. I would recommend using salt in the tank. @Colin_T has very good instructions for salt usage in tanks. Dont use normal table salt or sea salt though. There is ones for freshwater tanks and treatments. API sells some I know. I always have some on hand just in case

I do have aquarium salt, I do believe it wasn’t the best thing to add with loaches as they don’t have scales but I am at that stage now. If I don’t do anything they will die anyways, it’s heart breaking!