kschimmenti

I bought two small (baby) clown loaches of about the same age about six months ago, I assume one is male (slimmer, flatter back) and the other is female (fatter, more rounded back). They've been in the tank about 6 months and the presumed female is growing at a good rate, she's plump and solid. The other one however, is very skinny, almost emaciated looking. I watch them at feeding time and the skinny one is eating and acting normal. I'm just concerned that the difference in the two is becoming so vast. Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Butterfly

Clown Loaches are prone to a disease called Skinny disease. Here is some information. see if this looks like your loach.
http://www.loaches.com/search?Search...skinny+disease
Carol

kschimmenti

Thanks Carol, I did some more research and checked it out. It seems like the treatment of Levamisole is fairly hard to come by. I called my loyal aquarium store to see if they had it (which they don't) and spoke with the owner. He said that adding frozen brine shrimp to the diet may help and didn't really think treatment was necessary unless I was seeing worms coming out of the fish. He also said that a high pH might cause this, but I checked my parameters as soon as I got off the phone and they are perfect. Any other thoughts? I feel like I need to do more.

Butterfly

eat food for them .Levimisole can usually be found at feed stores. By the time you see worms it's usually too late.
I've kept Clowns in just about all ph and not had any problems , they just have to be acclimated slower if the ph is different than what their used to.
Absolutely clean water and highly oxygenated water is essential for them. Frozen Brine shrimp and frozen blood worms are great foods for them. Keep us posted.
Carol

kschimmenti

Okay, so I went ALL over the place this morning, fish stores and feed stores. Nobody has the recommended levamisol, one store could get it but it was 25$ and wouldn't be in until wednesday. So I got a few things, quick cure, jungle internal parasite guard and aquarium salt. Now my question is, what should I use. I've read that the Jungle stuff would work, I don't want to OD the fish by using more than one thing. Should I use the Jungle guard AND add salt or just one? My biggest fear is killing the other fish! Any more input??
(BTW, they are in a very clean, highly originated tank and I do feed frozen foods as well as dried foods. Like I said, the parameters are perfect and have been for a long time, thanks!)

mathas

I would not use the salt. A salt bath (not adding salt to your aquarium) can be an effective method of dislodging external parasites, but I can't see how it would help an internal parasite such as what might be causing your loach's problem. On top of that, loaches usually don't respond well to prolonged salt exposure.

The real problem is that a loach being skinny isn't really enough to pinpoint what's wrong with the fish, just a very visible sign that something is. Since there is more than one possible cause, either a full barrage of treatments (or blind luck to choose the correct one first) can be needed. As someone at loaches.com put it:
As the quote above mentions, you'll find a lot of people suggest treating both for parasites and for bacterial infections, the latter of which can be addressed with antibiotics, such as a combination of Maracyn and Maracyn II. Note that antibiotics can also eliminate your nitrifying bacteria, so keep an eye on your water parameters if and while you use them.

For one possible dosing routine, see the first response to this thread: http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=18947

kschimmenti

well sad to say, there is another member in fishy heaven. It happened so fast, within 5 days it went from, "gee he's looking kinda skinny" to "wow, he is emaciated" to dead I treated the tank with an internal parasite guard and everyone else seems fine. I added a new loach and he immediately buddied up with the other one. He is happy to have a friend again.