One Clown Loach Left Out Of 4 After Whitespot

[AndyOleszczuk]

I don't know what to do about the poor thing. He is still covered in it, I have been doing the treatments, even got him in a hospital tank running at 29-30 degrees and it just wont go away. After the over 3 dying of what must have been a swimbladder infection due to the whitespot I would now be extremely reluctant to have any more clowns so just dont know what to do as the poor fella can't stay on his own.

I realise that it may upset some people, myself included, but I am seriously thinking about euthanasing which is something I would be very reluctant to do before anyone starts having a go at me !!.

I just cant understand why the whitespot is still there ?. I have given the full dosage of treatments at the correct intervals, maintained the high temp, cleaned substrate and done partial water changes and it just won't go .

What can I do?, I'm at my wits end now.

Andy

 

[LisaLQ]

Personally, I'm possibly with you on this one. I lost all of my clown loaches to whitespot, despite using two different treatments (full courses - not mixed or cut off half way through). I think some clowns just cant recover from it, and personally given the choice again, I'd have euthanised.

But - dont give up til you've really tried everything. I dont know whether you're still using the same meds, but it might be worth trying a new one just to see if that works first.

Edited to add - clown loaches were my favourite fish too - but the experience has put me off ever owning them again. We'd had them a year and grown them from 2" up to about 7", and were very attached to them - to sit back and watch them die was awful, and like I said, given the chance to do it again, I'd probably euthanise to ease their suffering.

 

[paul-discus]

Andy I dont know what thite spot cure you used but when i had clowns i used King British WS3 at full dosage and it cured it very quickly and personally i think this is a very effective medicine. Clowns invariably get whitespot when introduced to a new tank and once treated are usually okay, it seems though that you have not had a good outcome, i think perhaps you have used half dosage of some medication and it just hasn't been eneough. I am aware that they are scaleless but the King British at full dosage didn't have any ill effects on mine. I don't know if your remaining clown will make it now but if it is in distress at this stage you can do 1 of 2 things, 1 try the KB or 2 put it out of it's misery if it is indeed too far gone. I will say however don't please give up with these fish as once treated they will develop some immunity and are great fish to watch and slow growing too, so i would try another trio and put something like Myzaxin in the water when they first go in the tank, then watch them carefully, even use a magnifying glass and at the first sign of whitespot remove any carbon from your filter and treat with KB straight away. It's not nice when this happens but happen it does and we learn from it though it is always distressing to lose any of our charges.

 

[AndyOleszczuk]

Out of interest Lisa, how did your clowns die ? Swimbladder infection ?. Paul, I have been using interpet number 6 whitespot treatment plus which says on it use 10 mls for each 100 litres and 1 ml for each 10 litres, my tank is 218 litres so I used 22mls of treatment each dose. I think I will give the kb one a go and see if it helps.

Thank you both

 

[LisaLQ]

They just died - weakness, from a very long time with whitespot (think it was about 3 weeks in total). We used Protozin initially (which was naff - didn't work for any of the other fish either) and then King British WS3 (incidentally - worked fantastically for the other fish, they were cured within a couple of days - just the clowns who were still riddled). By that point they weren't eating, you could hardly see what colour they were for all the spots, and they were so far gone they'd given up flicking to try and rid themselves. Oh and in the end we used full dose too, so it wasn't from lack of trying.

I dont know if it's worth a try, but a member (well respected) on another forum swears by triple dose of protozin. He does say as soon as symptoms are noticed, and did warn us that they might not be strong enough to cope with it - but as a last resort (maybe after another shot at normal dose or new med?) it might be worth a try?

 

[WILDER]

Does the clown loach look skinny.

 

[AndyOleszczuk]

Not really Wilder. He has been eating. Btw size is approx 4-5 inches long.

 

[WILDER]

Just wanted to check as internal parasites wouldn't of been helping the fish get better.
I would change the med as it doing nothing, are you using full dose.

 

[AndyOleszczuk]

Using full dosage Wilder. How come the whitespot has'nt fallen off the loach yet though ?. temp at 29-30 degrees.

 

[WILDER]

Is the clown loach stressed as that won't be helping.
I would try a very mild salt bath nothing to lose, clown loaches are only scaless on the head region.

 

[AndyOleszczuk]

I will give anything a try Wilder, thanks.

 

[WILDER]

Don't use the full dose though.
Good luck.
http/ukdiscus.com/ken_thomson_salt.htm

 

[AndreaC]

Out of interest Lisa, how did your clowns die ? Swimbladder infection ?. Paul, I have been using interpet number 6 whitespot treatment plus which says on it use 10 mls for each 100 litres and 1 ml for each 10 litres, my tank is 218 litres so I used 22mls of treatment each dose. I think I will give the kb one a go and see if it helps.

Thank you both

Interpet number 6 is rubbish< i used it with no success. I was then recommended protazin from waterlife, that didnt work but I think by time I got round to using that it was to far gone for my lot then. Mine were comets and a plec some months ago, 1st time id ever had to deal with white spot, lost the whole tank

LisaLQ- King British WS3, will bare that in mind should ever I need to treat for it again (hopefully not)

 

[fry_lover]

suprised to hear about Protozin not working so often, the last time i had a white spot issue i used Interpet and it cleared it all up in a matter of days, never tried Protozin for white spot

i do remember using protozin for livebearers who were flicking a lot and it did nothing, but i think that was flukes and protozin doesnt really market itself to help fluke problems anyway

if protozin is not that effective for white-spot then it makes me wonder what the point of Protozin is at all LOL

 

[johnatkin]

When I got my new batch of clown loach they all had white spot within a week, I treated it with Protozin at half dose and it all cleared up with one course of treatment with no losses and has never come back. I have used it in the past also and have always found it to be very effective.