Wasting in Loaches

[starrfish71]

okay- can anyone give me advise in wasting disease? It seems like every time I purchase clown, or any other type of loach, one or more die from wasting away within a few weeks or months. In a few incidents I had the wasting spread to other fish in the tank. (I have kept fish for along itme, so the incidents have happened over various time frames)

Here is what I've tried, at different times. Parasite meds,bacterial and fungal, internal and external. New filter. Drying, bleaching, and changing the substrate (and decorations). Removing affected fish before they die. Generally my water quality will be good to maybe a little (not fataly) high in nitrates ( depending how busy I get with school!)
Since this happens so slowly, even keeping them in seperate starter tanks after purchase I usually miss it- I mean, if they live in the sick tank for two weeks without any symptoms, they usually get put into the main tank. Then they waste away.

anyone have any experience with this? any advise on reading I can do?

 

[The-Wolf]

It sounds to me like they have a poor diet, what are you feeding them on?
do you regualy feed live food, like bloodworm, daphnia, tubifex?

there is a disease aptly called "skinny disease" and it is a parasitic infection, however it is very virile and extreamly hard to kill, so far the only chemical that can deal with it is Fumagillin, and I belive you need a licence to handle it.

 

[emma12321]

Do you always get small loaches? Whenever i have bought clowns smaller than an inch and half they have died. Probable because they don't ship as well as bigger ones and are starving by the time they get to the lfs. The clowns i have now were all 2 inches when i got them and i haven't had any problems. I found that clowns don't do well with meds so when you get them feed them up and make sure thay are gaining weight before introducing them to your other fish, mine like algae wafers , shrimp pellets, catfish pellets, cucumber and just about any live food.

Emma

 

[starrfish71]

In general, I don't think food is an issue. I believe in feeding variety, and feed frozen bloodworms , brineshrimp, krill or plankton. I feed a basic tropical fish flake, and I feed brine shrimp sinking pellets, algae wafers, and cichlid maintenance pellets, since I keep community tanks.

I try to feed every 2 to three days, and I do water changes(15-25%) minimum once every two weeks, give or take. I use biological as well as mechanical flitration, and I have heaters in all my tanks, and keep the temp at 78*F. My water is well water and comes out a little alkaline (florida) and I always add FW salt to soften it and keep them healthy. Depending on the tank, it has either basic aquarium gravel or flourite, or a mix of both, with lace rock, river rocks, lava rocks, driftwood, live and plastic plants, hard rocks that don't affect pH (like granite) and maybe a piece of limestone.

I do tend to buy the smaller loaches, since I always want to buy at least 3, and I can't really afford three fish at $15, as opposed to 3 fish at $5. some of my loaches I have had for a very long time, with no disease or problems EVER occuring. When I keep them in the treatment tank, they get continuous salt, and formaldehyde, and recently I've fed them the internal parasite meds as directed. Still get wastings, randomly, that I can't pin down.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The odds are not great for saving most fish w/ wasting. I would suggest you try two different treatment regimins, both using the same med. First, move the fish to an H tank. If the fish is still eating, feed it metrodinazol treated food. Feed it 2x/day and feed only the medicated food. If the fish is not eating or if the the treated food has no effect, the next thing to try is a metro dip. Put a tripple dose of metro into a small container and put the fish into this for about 15 mins and then return it to the H tank.