eiginh

Hi All,

My dad's Oscar past away a after years of taking care of him . He was a mean guy but a fish is always a good companion. Anyways to keep my dad occupied he bought 3 red fin tin foil barbs and I decided to add more and bought 3 clown loach, 3 bala sharks and 2 common plecos in a 50 gallon tank. I just started noticing that 2 of the loaches have ICH and I'm scared the other fish might get it too (one severely covered and the other half as bad). The tank has a really old 100 watt water heater but I do not know the temp. it is giving, so I will replace it with a 200 Visi-Therm stealth heater today. I told my dad to vacuum the tank everyday and do a %20 water change since he only vacuums once every week or two. I am thinking about buying aquarium salt or pickling salt today to help the Ich outbreak but I am not sure if it is safe with the other fish and I read so many articles debating to use salt as it might not be great with scaleless fish. I'm also avoiding meds, I'm trying to fight it off naturally. Idk the water parameters but I will be ordering a test kit soon. If you have better advices please post. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Amanda

Welcome!
Loaches don't do well with salt.
Raise the temp to 82 - 84* for 2 weeks, doing daily vacuuming.
Also, once this is under control, I would think about returning most of the fish, they all get too large for a 50 gal. tank.

midnightwolf

first of all your tank is way over stocked but you can take care of that later. the best thing to do is to first seperate the fish with ich from the healthy ones and if you want to treat it naturally i would bring up the temp to about 85*F and make 25% WC every couple of days. good luck with your fish and welcome to fishlore. oh yea try to get the API freshwater master test kit.

eiginh

Thank you!

I was thinking it was a bit over stocked for a small tank...though they are about 1-1.5" each except the common plecos they're a bit larger. Is it still possible to keep them for awhile until they outgrow the tank? I would hate to give away any of them except the common plecos b/c they don't really do anything except eat leftovers and wander about during night...

midnightwolf

you dont have to get rid of them just get another tank or a larger one to replace it.

Amanda

Keeping them in a small tank will stunt their growth & is painful for the fish.
IS it possible to get a larger tank?

eiginh

No, we don't have enough space in our apt. otherwise I would. I guess I'll give back the bala sharks and the plecos. Would the tank be big enough for the 3 clowns and the 3 tinfoil barbs until they outgrow their tank?

midnightwolf

it might be but im not sure...

Butterfly

tinfoil Barbs get to 14 inches
clown Loaches can get to 14 inches or larger
bals sharks can get to15 inches
Common Plecos get 10-14 inches
everything in that tank will out grow it in a very short time.
Carol

mr. Clown Loach

correction butterfly but clown loaches only get an average of about8-9in because the largest clown loach in captivity is Marge and she's 11.5in and the easiest way to get rid of ich is to just turn the temperature up i didn't even changed the water i just cranked it up and waited.

Butterfly

I respectfully disagree with you. Loaches get very large given optimum water parameters and space to grow. Marge was 11.5 inches when that picture was taken in 2005. isn't she beautiful?
Here is a profile with tank requirements written by people who have kept these huge fish and know what their talking about. http://www.loaches.com/species-index...a-macracanthus click on the pics at the bottom and see the other large Clowns
Clown Loaches are ICH magnets. The least chill and they come down with ICH. You are correct raising the temps up is the easiest way to get rid of ICH. Leaving it up is the easiest way to keep them from getting it again.
I'm glad not changing the water while treating ICH worked for you but it usually doesn't because more frequent water changes helps keep the oxygen level up since warmer water contains less oxygen. More frequent substrate vacuums during the time of raised temps will help get rid of the ICH in the tank.
Carol

mr. Clown Loach

i thought marge died like last year.

Butterfly

thanks for letting me Hijack for a minute
It's possible but I couldn't find anything at http://forums.loaches.com/
I'll keep my eyes/ears open
Couldn't find anything so i asked Here is the reply
http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?p=162510#162510
Carol

eiginh

I read bala sharks and red fin tin foil barbs grow quick but clown loaches may take awhile...The clown loaches are pretty entertaining to look at. I would like to keep them as long as possible. The plecos I will post on craigslist for whomever wants it for free. I seriously thought they would be cool fish. I don't know why my Dad bought the tin foil barbs, b/c he told me he didn't want anymore carnivores after the oscar we had...

I feel really bad for one of the clown loaches, he hasn't come out for awhile and there's Ich all over him but I bought a new heater and set it at 80* Ill turn the dial to 82 tomorrow. Oh and I almost thought it died when it was sleeping upside down the other day, that frightened me. Haha I forgot how silly these fish can be sometimes...Ill turn the dial to 82 tomorrow. I also bought a new filter system Tetra Whisper ex70, I haven't done research on it but it's filtration system looked awesome.

Thanks for the help from all of you, My dad and I really appreciate it.

eiginh

HELP!!! I'm really worried the loach with the really bad ich looks like he is getting worse. He is active but his gills look bad, it's not red but looks very uncolored. I read warming the tank may take up to a week or two to kill it but when will I start seeing health improvements? I also set the heater to 84* today.

platy ben

The clown loach may have ich so bad that nothing can savei t now, just keep your temperature up .
The clown loaches do grow very slowly but as they grow their internal organs will still become cramped.
Il be honest, if it were me i would re-home everything and start again.

eiginh

Yeah, sounds like a great plan. I bought most of the fish for my dad as a birthday gift but he may want to keep the tinfoil barbs. I will try to convince him to rehome all of them since the tank is too small. Now I need to research what are good fish for a 50 gallon.

Poor fish...

Thanks for all the help everyone.

midnightwolf

im sorry but it really is the only way, you could get some cories or a few weather loaches. if you have questions about stocking just let us know.

eiginh

the clown has past away...

I also got my test lab today, the readings are in my profile.

pepetj

So sorry... 've been following this thread since you post it.

Your nitrites readings suggest you have a mini-cycle. A well established tank reads nitrites (and ammonia) as zero, regardless when you measure. Hope you can post results for the other parameters as well.

You can take care of that by performing partial daily water changes. I hope you enjoy maintenance (I do enjoy it, no hostility implied in this comment) and solve the problems you might have down the line.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

agabr123

i'm sorry you lost your loach

midnightwolf

im so sorry, its easy to fall attached to them...

mr. Clown Loach

you just lost the best fish in the world

eiginh

I remeasured the tank and it is 40 gallons not 50, please excuse my mistake.

I tested the ammonia level last night and it read to zero, I will test it again tomorrow in case if it's different.

My dad does the water changes every Saturday morning or two, he also hasn't bought a new filter media for ages but he just rinses it in tap water...I am waiting for my emperor 400 to be delivered and hopefully that will make the water conditions better. When I do change the filter, I can just take out the old and put in the new right? (dumb question, but im not sure )

Off topic, I am planning on keeping the tinfoil barbs and the clown loachs, I will probably give a pleco away and try to exchange my 3 bala sharks for a couple of clown loachs. I also want to add plants to the tank, what do you guys recommend?

I will try to take some photos this weekend to get a clear definition of what my tank looks.

Thank you guys, all the posts are highly appreciated.

mr. Clown Loach

if you add plants put alrge stones around them as they do like to dig alot, and if you buy a new filter leave the other one on with it and maybe after a while then take it off so it could cycle

eiginh

Here are pics of our fish and a somewhat set up tank. Planning on to add some plants soon.

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midnightwolf

thats a nice tank and i can see why you would thuink its not over stocked but those fish are gonna get big. congrats on finding them new homes