Lost One Very Large Clown Another Seems To Have Gone Mottled Colour An

[mrbudgie]

Lost one Very Large clown another seems to have gone mottled colour and Not swimming to well, they are normally swimming round in large shoal but now they are hiding in the wood apart from one very colourful clown and the one looking looking ill.

done a 50% water change but all other fish look perfect

any ideas what the disease could be as had the clowns for 6 years give or take and large clowns are irraplacible

cheers guys

 

[WILDER]

Can you post water stats please in ammonia, niitrite, nitrate,and ph.

Can you describe the mottled colour in more detail please.
Do the gills also look mottled.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing?

 

[tribalbrit]

To me they look starved and frightened. Clowns need plenty of hiding places. plenty of plant life and more substrate on the tank bottom than you presently have. They also like a strong current and a large shoal.
I thing may be they are so frightened that they are not eating.
They are hiding behind the heaters as they have nowhere else to hide, the more they can hide the more they come out.

Get some caves in there and some plant life.

 

[WILDER]

I have never kept clown loaches so don't know a great deal about them.
Here some information when clown loaches go a grey colour.
http/www.loaches.com/articles/clown-loach-coloration-marking-variations

 

[mrbudgie]

Can you post water stats please in ammonia, niitrite, nitrate,and ph.

Can you describe the mottled colour in more detail please.
Do the gills also look mottled.
Any signs of flicking and rubbing?

Hi Wilder, cheers for reply. Havent tested water as been in studio all day working. Currently dont have any testers will try get some tomoz. No signs of rubbing and tank and other populants seem Perfect.
But Any way just got in and he had passed as well. All the other clowns seem perfect full colour shoaling and clowning around now, so maybe it was loosing one had rearannged the pecking order so they were hiding.

will keep you updated, I if you look in the pic he didnt just go dull but mottled which is normally a sign of bad water when keeping clowns but it seems to have been just these two.

Bloody gutting though as been keeping clowns for a long long time now and never had issue like this before.

cheers again bud

To me they look starved and frightened. Clowns need plenty of hiding places. plenty of plant life and more substrate on the tank bottom than you presently have. They also like a strong current and a large shoal.
I thing may be they are so frightened that they are not eating.
They are hiding behind the heaters as they have nowhere else to hide, the more they can hide the more they come out.

Get some caves in there and some plant life.

Can I ask, do you keep a large clown loach shoal.

Look in pic of tank there is 9 clowns altogether (all large except for the smaller healthy looking one pictured for comparison against the poorly one) but you cant see them as they are hiding in the hidey holes. Its a 6 foot tank the wood is very large and hollow so lots of places for them, and plants and large clowns have never worked for me lol.

how do they looked starved and frightened though explain.

and finally it was the hiding that was the strange behaviour for my clowns as they have always been in a large and over active shoal and a joy to watch not hiding.

 

[WILDER]

Please get your water tested.
Did the gills also look mottled?
















Sorry for you losses.

 

[tribalbrit]

I have a shoal of twenty one clowns some of which I have had for 22 years. So yes you can ask.




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and yours do not look happy.

You asked for an opinion and i gave you mine.




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[mrbudgie]

Please get your water tested.
Did the gills also look mottled?
















Sorry for you losses.

gills looked fine matey and will do , weird hey

I have a shoal of twenty one clowns some of which I have had for 22 years. So yes you can ask.




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and yours do not look happy.

You asked for an opinion and i gave you mine.

your tank looks very nice so credit were its due (but I would be interested in a list of the plants you have managed to keep with the clowns)

but how do they not look happy explain, as of course the ill one that died dont look happy but its ill, but the blurry pic of healthy one doesnt give much away really does it. but assure they seem happy.

But I asked about illness not on the morale of the fish.

if you want to start a thread int he loach section about fish morale and judging there moods ect then feel free and we can discuss it away from this subject

 

[Skysters]

i dont think he ment any harm , i had a case of ich in my tank , i had 3 clowns , when ich was about 3 of them didnt look happy , u can tell im guessing by how they react , .when one of mine died he was covered in ich , and the other 2 clowns were im guessing gutted cos they went into hiding for 2 days and i couldnt even find them only by chance after thinking they gone i cleared tank for a good gravel clean and they popped out one of the deccos when giving them a bit of a clean at kitchen sink , the shock then made the second clown really poorly and he also couldnt be saved ,but yayyyy i managed to pull one clow back to good health he looks really happy now specially now hes back into a shoal , and also clowns being my faves i tend to watch them closely and u can see a mood change i think in a clown daily activites , compared to when my last 3 were poorly the lot i have now are just happy looking hope ur others are all good too

 

[snazy]

I am only a newbie when it comes to clown loaches, but the plants and clowns tank looks amazing. Mine also tend to eat soft leaved plants, especially the tiny ones that have just grown but so far won't touch anubias and grass type plants like saggitaria and another type I have I don't know the name of but you can see it behind the clown loach below at the back of the tank. Regardless, the plants still manage to grow enough although there are holes here and there of course. Based on my limited experience I would agree in the long term that your tank is quite bare and they can get stressed, they easily do get scared. Some giant vallis at the back, some of the big anubias types like barteri var. barteri as well will provide plenty of cover and shade and also your angels will love it too. If you haven't added any fish recently that would cause sickness, then stress is the number one trigger of any disease they get succumbed to.
I added some almond leaves in my tank about a week ago and I am noticing that the plants seems to have been left alone a lot more now. Here are some recent pictures:

 

[mrbudgie]

cheers fellas. Tests done water is perfect.

skunk loach looked like it had small bit of white spot, so done white spot treatment and raised temp, fungal treatment and recently put new air curtain in tank and it seems to have caused an alge bloom which so put algae treatment in so hopefully will be back to health soon.

snazy how do you keep your plants down in the sand and attached to wood

 

[snazy]

snazy how do you keep your plants down in the sand and attached to wood

The anubias plants were attached using superglue(cyanoacrylate). You can glue it outside and put it straight in the tank if you like, never harmed my fish and it cures faster under water but it's better to cure outside estetically wise otherwise excess glue will turn white and looks ugly on the wood(but it will fall off with a bit of scratching)
As for the ones in the sand, if I am putting new plants with little root system, I pile up stones around them close enough to the base so the fish can't uproot them but also make sure you've got enough sand as a substrate. Eventually the roots get too strong for the clowns(or my common pleco) to uproot. Don't get anything like swords or plants that are generally light green because they have softer leaves and the clowns will make holes in them. However, if they are fast growing they'll take a lot of beating. As I mentioned above the grass ones look to be left alone, anubias all different types, java ferns different types, my cryptocoryne took a bit of beating at first on the new growth but they left it alone(probably not so tasty) The aponogeton ulvaceus(the wavy tall plant to the right) suffered a lot of eating, including the new leaves but it grows so fast they can't manage to eat it all and since I kind of moved it in the corner there, they don't bother it that much anymore(3 new leaves all without holes). Also, floating plants like amazon frogbit, salvinia minima, etc.. would be good. And the more caves, stones, tunnels, tubes, etc.. they have, the less they'll bother the plants. I think they do it out of boredom as the bottom of my tank was kind of bare before the almond leaves. They also tend to generally attack every new plant or plant I moved to another spot(curiousity I guess) and after certain period of time they leave it alone.

On a side note, one of the only recorded spawning of clown loaches in captivity happened in a heavily planted tank.

 

[snazy]

By the way, for the sick clowns smash some garlic cloves and throw them in the tank. Mine attacked the garlic like it was the best thing ever and it's very good for them, especially that they are sick now.

 

[tribalbrit]

When clowns hide behind the heater as some of yours are in the picture its because they are stressed and not happy, in my opinion. The dead one looked a little thin to me and therefore I thought that may be they are stressed for what ever reason and not eating as they should.
I stand by what I said that your tank looks a little bit bare and some decor and plants would help lower any stress levels. No offence meant.
The fact that your water test is ok points towards other causes, stress is very common in clowns, if they are not totally happy they will let you know.

I manage to keep various anubia, crypts, java fern and amazon sword with the clowns I haven long given up with stem plants as if the clowns dont rip them up the hoplo;s do.
I also feed garlic occasionally and cucumber too.

 

[mrbudgie]

cheers guys all seem back to normal today ordered lotsa plants.

being into fishing might tie them down to the wood with fishing line.

any body recomend some nice floating plants