Poorly Hillstream Loach

[CherryDanio]

Please can some one give us some advice. Our hillstream loach Watson seems to be fading fast. When I got up this morning he was fine, by 12 today he was acting weird (on the gravel which he never normally does, he's allways behind the filter or on the glass). Not long ago I found him upside down in the tank. He has no marks of any kind. He is now in a bucket on his own so the other fish can't harras him. Water quality is fine, all stats normal. No recent additions to the tank for about 2 weeks. All the other fish are absaloutly fine. He keeps convulsing and lying on his back even if we turn him over which we are not doing anymore so as not to stress him out further.

The weird thing is we bought 3 hillstream loaches from p@h less than a year ago, he is the only one remaining. The other all died suddenly with no symptoms (we'd check on everyone the night before, wake up in the morning to a corpse). The guy in p@h just said "yeah that can happen with them". We have had no other fish deaths.

Is there anything I can do to help him??? Sorry for the double post but it was suggested that I post it here.

 

[black angel]

these plecs dont last long in most aquaria.

they need really fast flowing water and it has to be really cold...they come from the high fast flowing streams in china i think in the highland areas where temps barely get above freezing. they hug the rocks in these really fast flowing oxygen rich waters and its very hard to recreate this in normal home aquaria. a year is pretty good for these fish. if you get more, then place the filter outlet at a glass wall and make sure theres plenty of oxygen going through

 

[CherryDanio]

We do massivly overfilter the tank and he was often seen on the wall opposite the filter flow enjoying the current. I guess in a way i'm relieved to hear this is a common problem. I honestly had no idea they had to be kept that cold. When we bought them/ the info I found on the net when we bought them just said "coldwater". We won't be buying anymore as we dont have the facilities to keep water that cold. Is there anything I can do to ease the little guys suffering?

 

[CherryDanio]

RIP Watson :'( He didn't make it.

 

[Amunet]

Oh I'm so sorry
We used to have a hillstream loach in our tropical tank (yes I know)....
Ours did great though. Healthy cute little thing that would get SO excited during feeding time.
We lost it during a pH crash