Injured Baby Kuhli Loach?

Tank is looking good ! Those are just neon tetras, not black neon, btw. Getting a few more kuhli's would be real good, they are very social and do better in groups, I have 13 of them.

Thanks!

Yup they are just "normals" - we did have 2 black neons, but gave them back to the fish store (due to stocking issues, as they should be kept in a shoal, but didn't want to mix with the other normal neons, and we couldn't get another shoal of 10 just for them); we tried getting 2-3 more Kuhlis today though (would have brought up the total number to 5-6), but both fish stores in our area didn't have them... :-/
Hopefully they'll get some soon!


EDIT: So, finally, Tiny came out of wherever she was hiding, and had a little zoom through the aquarium
I tried taking a quick shot of her


I know it's not the best, but she wouldn't keep still - however, when she settled down, she did so in the "shade" of the driftwood(so, not INSIDE of it :-D); there's a lot of space between the driftwood & the sand, enough for the mystery (?) snail to get through, and on her tummy!! And she also did look less red when she swam past, so hopefully that'll fix itself, and she'll get better with the sand substrate, improved water quality with the reduced number of fish, and better loach-sized hiding places (the other two already love those new pipes)...

 

Tank looks great! All of your kuhlis will be SO much happier with the sand. Now you'll be able to watch them sift it through their gills. It's hilarious to watch. They look like mini-snowblowers.

 

Thanks

Yeah, I think the sand will also really help Tiny, and the Cory loves it too - the only problem is, as it's a bright white sand, you can see the poo quite easily, even though the Cory tries his best to bury it lol similar to a human sweeping dirt under the carpet ;-)

I also have an update on Tiny - when I turned the lights on this morning, she was out and about, and her injuries definitely look less sever, it seems like the red has faded quite a bit now, leaving only the bit near her "throat" and "breast"

 

Hello everybody,

This morning when I looked at the fish tank, one of my KuhlI Loaches seems to have a pretty bad injury - it looks like half his bristles and NOSE are missing???





We exchanged the substrate 2 days ago(from gravel to sand, as advised by members here ;-) ), but all seemed fine afterwards, and the only new addition that day were 3 guppies;
else, in the tank are (in total):
3 KuhlI Loaches (including the injured one)
1 bronze cory (I know, should be held in schools, but the LFS had none)
1 Brittlenose
4 guppies
10 tetras
1 rasboras
1 mystery (?) snail

I'm really baffled, and shocked, as to how he might have gotten that injury, it definitely looks like half his "nose" is missing; the other 2 KuhlI Loaches are both smaller than him (a few members of this forum have already advised me on my smallest Kuhli, Tiny, previously, which seems to be getting better each day ); the only thing that I can think of right now is that during the swap of the substrate he might have been injured, as we had to take them out of the tank...? Although, I just used the normal "net", and I had a look at him afterwards, and I didn't notice it then, and I am pretty sure had it been there already, I would have noticed it...


Water parameters:
Temp: 28'C
pH:7.0
Nitrite NO2: 0ppm
Nitrate: NO3: 0ppm
Ammonia: 0.5ppm - I already added Prime against that yesterday, but to no effect so far, so I added another dose today...

Thanks!



Update - Tiny seems to be looking better and better, but my biggest KuhlI is causing me grief now (see other thread), as his nose seems to have been GONE?!
I opened up another thread - we just don't seem to have any luck with those poor guys! :-(

 

Good morning,


I have merged 2 of your threads both dealing with the loaches. I think it will be less confusing to other members to have all of this information in the same thread.

Thanks! Best wishes for your tank.

Ken

 

Can you try to get a close-up shot of his face? I don't understand how his nose could be gone and he would not be bleeding all over the tank.

 

Yeah, I see your point.
Sadly, when I woke up this morning, we found him lying upside down on the sand, colourless, not breathing; he died during the night... :-(
But before I could get a good look at him, my fiancé had already taken him out, and well..
However, he said that the nose seemed to look fine, and there had just been sand on it, but he also didn't take too closely a look...
Behavior wise, there had not been a big change in him before and after the substrate change; he did seem a bit less active, but so did most of the other fish, too, so I had put that down to stress; yesterday, he was even swimming through the tank...
It's just really sad, we hoped that with reduced fish in the tank and the new substrate, they'd be happier :-(
However, I did treat the tank with Melafix - could that have been the reason...?

 

What did you use melafix for? Some species don't do well with meds of any kind.

Remember, too, that you're keeping the kuhlis in way too small a grouping for them to be comfortable. It could be that, between that, and the new substrate, they've been overly stressed.

 

We asked the lfs when we got it about whether the kuhlis, BN and Cory would be ok with it, and she said yes (we had a fungal infection on a female guppy previously, and I just saw I meant to write Pimafix)...

Thing is - now there are only 2 kuhlis left, so would your recommend getting more, and just putting it down to the stress? Parameters are ok, except ammonia, which I'll test again tonight (24hr after putting in Prime); yesterday it was about 0.25ppm

 

Quick update on my little KuhlI Loach Tiny - she is happily zooming around the tank, and can be seen much more now than previously; also, that redness seems to have gone back quite a bit (trying to take photos whenever I see her out, but by the time i'm back with the camera, she's either gotten herself into spots where I can't take decent pics without having parts of the plants blocking her, or simply continues to zoom around, which creates really fuzzy pics - cheeky little bugger ;-) );
the Cory also loves the substrate, and the other loach is also out more often, too (we are still looking on increasing loach shoals, but both LFSs in our area don't have them atm)

Thanks for those advises, has helped me a lot!

Just for the future - with BN, Cory & loach in the tank, would you entirely recommend against using melafix/Pimafix? I heard that when you introduce new fishies to the tank, it would be good to treat for 3 days with Melafix - is that true?