Sick Yo-yo Loach

Hello everyone! Today I came home to find my happiest and healthiest full grown yo-yo loach sick at the bottom of the tank. Here are the outward symptoms that I could see before he went and hid himself in the rocks: His eyes seemed slightly white and deflated looking and his colors seemed sickly and pale. I reached in to see if I could get a response and he's usually pretty outgoing, it took me actually touching him for him to slowly swim and find a better hiding spot. As I watched him he fell over on his side and then hopped back up.

The part that astounds me is that I have two baby yoyo loaches in the tank who are both fine along with two other weather loaches, a hillstream Loach and a number of other generally sensitive species. I would think that if something was wrong, I'd lose my fragile baby yo-yos before my healthy adult. My ammonia is around 0.15ppm my nitrite is at 0ppm and my nitrate is sitting at about 10 to 15 parts per million. The other thing is, he was absolutely fine yesterday and so is everyone else right now. He was out and happy and eating food. I did a water change on Monday night (today is Wednesday for potential late readers) and everyone has been fine since.

So any ideas would be greatly appreciated, the only running theory I have is something is bothering him because his slime coat seems thick. I don't have any pictures yet seeing as he's hiding. It may help to know that I am a salter and salt my water, I only do half the recommended dose and have never ever had any of my fish be noticeably affected by it. (I've salted every tank I've ever had with no issues for over 10 years and I almost never have sick fish.)


Update: I just fed the tank and usually he comes out to join the feeding frenzy, he's still hidden and I can see just his tail up in his rock cubby. Every other fish is vibrant and healthy and eating with absolutely no signs of distress.

 

Since no one has helped so far, I spent a significant amount of time doing some IR and found that it may be linked to minor salting but I haven't confirmed anything. I'm performing a 35% water change without any salt to see if it helps.

 

Update on the loach, I'm able to see him up in the little cave behind my small Amazon sword. I can't see his face but I can see his body, it appears the lower half of him (horizontally) is pale in color while the top half looks relatively normal. He's not moving around and he's laying over on the wall of the cave. Hopefully he's able to fight through it.

 

And another update for anyone who decides to actually help a brother out: he came out and his eyes are cloudy but he seems responsive, I tried to net him to put in my nursery container to quarantine him from the other fish. His back fins looked a little nipped but he got away from me just fine and clearly has some kick left in him. It didn't occur to me to take a picture until after he'd hidden away again.

 

Just wanted to say thanks! Although this might be prematur, but I seemed to be having the same/similar issue and after googling sick yoyo loach I came across your post. I have just done my water change ... So fingers crossed. I signed up just so I could let you know your post may have helped another fish friend out!!!! Thank you

 

That's fantastic! Welcome to the forum! My yo-yo is happy and fat as can be, he enjoys eating and chasing his brothers around in his spare time! Hopefully yours makes it! By the way, I posted on two threads and this one stopped getting updated, I did a lot more to save my loach's life, here's the complete thread:

Important - Sick Yo-yo Loach.

Sick Yo-yo Loach.

Just wanted to say thanks! Although this might be prematur, but I seemed to be having the same/similar issue and after googling sick yoyo loach I came across your post. I have just done my water change ... So fingers crossed. I signed up just so I could let you know your post may have helped another fish friend out!!!! Thank you