Help with clown loach!

[Jo_ma31]

Clown loach problem!
Hi, I wonder if anyone can help. One of our clown loaches (we have a group of 6 that we've had for 12 years) has suddenly started sitting vertically near the heater all the time, head up, occasionally swimming, near the top of the tank, but not at the bottom at all like usual. He also has some fin damage. No signs of ich which we know is common with them. He's been like it for about 3 days now but we don't know what to do for the best as we know they are sensitive to medication too and we've never had much luck treating sick fish in the past. All the others are behaving as usual but ignoring this one, usually they stick together. All water tests seem normal and we've not changed anything recently, no new fish for a couple of years. (Their tank mates are two bristlenose plecs, a snowball plec, a couple of types of tetra and some siamese algae eaters) Thanks in advance.

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum I'm sure we can help work out whats going on but please can we get a bit more info. Idealy if you can give us your tank size, maintenance regieme, water paramaters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) etc that would give us some clues if anything is going on.

Wills

 

[Jo_ma31]

Hi,

Thanks so much for your reply. So everything appears to be normal- or at least what it usually is:

560l tank
25 degrees
Ammonia 0.1ppm
Nitrate 32ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
PH 6.9

We do a water change every month about 1/4 tank and last did it last weekend. That's the only recent thing we've done but not unusual.

Thanks for any help or advice. Difficult as they're about 15 to know if it's just their time.

 

[Wills]

Age could certainly be a factor but they are known to be pretty long lived fish with 20+ years not being unusual. The 0.1 ammonia reading is interesting - what test kit are you using? Is it strips or a liquid kit?

Wills

 

[Jo_ma31]

Age could certainly be a factor but they are known to be pretty long lived fish with 20+ years not being unusual. The 0.1 ammonia reading is interesting - what test kit are you using? Is it strips or a liquid kit?

Wills

Thanks very much. Yeah we were hoping they'd all go on a bit longer. It's strips and ammonia has always been a tiny bit like 0.1 using the colour chart.
Someone else has suggested using Esha 2000 which we could try and get tomorrow and use. Always worried about medication upsetting everything else.

Thanks

 

[Wills]

Thanks very much. Yeah we were hoping they'd all go on a bit longer. It's strips and ammonia has always been a tiny bit like 0.1 using the colour chart.
Someone else has suggested using Esha 2000 which we could try and get tomorrow and use. Always worried about medication upsetting everything else.

Thanks

I’d try a liquid test kit ideally the api one and check if it shows any ammonia as ammonia poisoning could be an answer here.

I wouldn’t start any medication at the moment as a low ammonia level could explain this.

 

[Colin_T]

A picture tells a thousand words.
Any chance of pictures and video of the fish?

What sort of filter do you have?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?

You need to do water changes more often than once a month.


--------------------
FIRST AID FOR FISH
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until you find out what the problem is. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

 

[Jo_ma31]

A picture tells a thousand words.
Any chance of pictures and video of the fish?

What sort of filter do you have?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?

You need to do water changes more often than once a month.


--------------------
FIRST AID FOR FISH
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until you find out what the problem is. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Thanks for your help.

We've always done monthly water changes for 20+ years with no trouble.

Will video tomorrow as trying to keep light off to keep stress down but took this photo earlier.

Yes clean gravel on water change days ,(also when we clean / replaced filter parts at that time too).

Filter is Maidenhead Aquatics Aquamanta 600.

Will try emergency measures.

Thanks

 

[Jo_ma31]

Hi, we've filmed this today.

He's been sitting on the bottom a lot today and now swimming near the top.

Thanks

 

[Jo_ma31]

And this photo.

 

[Jo_ma31]

The video won't uploads as mp4 format isn't supported.

I can take more pictures but the one I've uploaded shows the fin damage and the fact he's swimming near the top, a bit oddly.

Thanks

 

[Essjay]

The way to post videos is to upload them to YouTube then post the link here.

 

[Jo_ma31]

Thank you. I've done that.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish is really skinny and sunken in around the head. This can be from malnutrition or an internal protozoan or bacterial infection.

How quickly did the fish develop the sunken head appearance?
What does the fish's poop look like?
Is it still eating well?

The tail looks like someone has taken a bite out of it.

The fish is covered in excess mucous (cream film over its body and eyes). This is normally caused by something in the water irritating the fish. Big daily water changes and gravel cleans for a week should fix this.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

-----------------
Do big daily water changes and gravel cleans for a week.

Feed the fish more often (3-5 times a day) with frozen and or live foods to try and build it up physically. In a couple of weeks you can reduce the feeding.

Maybe deworm the fish. See section 3 of the following link for deworming fish.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Jo_ma31]

The fish is really skinny and sunken in around the head. This can be from malnutrition or an internal protozoan or bacterial infection.

How quickly did the fish develop the sunken head appearance?
What does the fish's poop look like?
Is it still eating well?

The tail looks like someone has taken a bite out of it.

The fish is covered in excess mucous (cream film over its body and eyes). This is normally caused by something in the water irritating the fish. Big daily water changes and gravel cleans for a week should fix this.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

-----------------
Do big daily water changes and gravel cleans for a week.

Feed the fish more often (3-5 times a day) with frozen and or live foods to try and build it up physically. In a couple of weeks you can reduce the feeding.

Maybe deworm the fish. See section 3 of the following link for deworming fish.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

Hi,

Thanks for your help. His sunken head appearance has happened over the last couple of days. He appeared fine and behaving normally- including eating until about 4 days ago. He has always been the smallest of the group but did always get food. He doesn't seem to be eating now. Been trying to feed him bloodworm (which he'd normally love) repeatedly today but he's just ignoring it at the moment.

We've done another big water change today (not chlorinated) and gravel clean.

Will look at the de-worming post too. Our local aquarium shop also recommended Esha 2000?

Thanks very much