Skinny disease

Have any of y'all had experience with the skinny disease in clown loaches...or any fish, for that matter? I'm pretty sure that's what killed two of my guys, but Mr. Man at the lfs said that they probably didn't like what I gave them to eat, so they starved to death. I hadn't really watched all of the fish to make sure they ate, so I couldn't really argue.  I distinctly remember trying out bloodworms and flakes on the whole lot, but I still couldn't say with confidence that they ate.  But I think this guy may have something like skinny...or at least some disease. He's probably the same size he was when I bought him five weeks or so ago. 

I got him at about the same time as Binky (the little clown that is growing like a weed.) Binky was the smallest of all of the four new clowns, and now Binky has surpassed this guy in size.  I made sure to watch how the sickening clown eats so I could plead my case.  He does eat; he scrambles as well as he can during feeding times and gets what he can.  He's somewhat slower than the others, but he makes an honest effort. He also tries to school with the others.

He also swims like a drunk driver (swimmer?) I just noticed this. He'll be beating his front two fins as fast as he can, but he doesn't actually swim, know what I mean? The other clowns swim around, looking like they have full faculty of their fins. Whenever he beats his fins hard he looks like he's having a seizure. It's like his other fins aren't kicking in to help him swim.  I call him Hummingbird because that's exactly what he looks like.  And he also kind of lists over to the side, uprights himself, then does it again. 
I'm not sure if this is a problem or if he's just weird, but he'll go to a part of the tank and just hover vertically, maybe an inch or so under the surface of the water.  He's done that in a corner of the tank and right in front of the water flow of a filter.

The other two died before I could locate some Maracyn I/II or E.M. tablets, so I can't medicate.  I found another lfs, so I'll peek in there when I get the chance (and the diagnosis!)\

I just did a 50% water change on 11/11, but the water tests as follows:
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 15
pH: 7.0 -7.2

The other fish look fine.

That's all I can think of to tell y'all.

 

Jan is he starting to look skinny like the others did?
Carol

 

Could be a flotation problem?

 

Yes, I think he looks skinny. He hasn't really grown, which is what I notice most, along with his swimming.

Flotation, Miss Mouse? Can you give me more on that?

 

Last night the poor fish looked terrible. He'd crammed himself between a rock and the wall of the aquarium and I could see that his breathing was very rapid. He held on though.
So I found some E.M. tablets. I heard they worked well on clowns with skinny. I just gave the first dosage today and he's already up and swimming around.

 

That's great to hear !! Keep us posted.
Carol

 

Well the fish that I've seen with "skinny disease" have been tetras and they have all seemed to get skinny and then have a bouancy problem - not been able to swim, they just bobn around the top and even whent hey do swim down they just float up again...