Things are Not going well

Hello

Longtime lurker here, joined to seek some help. I apologize its long but if I am detailed it will save you from asking questions.

I have had fish my entire life, but I have kept the hobby a very simple one. I have recently been experiencing some tank problems.

I have a 25 gallon tank. I have 2 large, very old Plecos in the tank. I also had 2 Clown Loaches who are a few years old. The tank has gravel bottom, 5 flake plastic plants, and a fake log for the Loaches. There is an air stone in the tank, a heater, and an Aqua Tech 20/40 gallon Power Filter. The tank is lighted during daylight hours and turned off at night. fish are fed a very small amount of flake food twice daily.

In the past 2 weeks, one of the loaches began to lose weight, started laying on its side on the bottom, floating around on its side, floating upside down in the tank. It has very elevated breathing rate; its gills have been going a mile a minute. Can move its fins but seems unmotivated or immobile. It tries to eat but I don't think it has eaten in some time. Looked to have either Ich or fin rot perhaps combined with old age; I am not sure. I know loaches are prone to Ich. Whatever was wrong with it; there was no glaring symptoms externally which screamed something was killing this fish. If I took my net and helped him along, he would swim fine, swim around, stay upright for as long as he wanted. The minute he was left along; he'd return to a state of despair.

Loach #2; the sick fish's friend was very healthy, good weight, very active. Often seen helping his friend around the tank. Beautiful fish

The Plecos have been fine, no known issues. very healthy looking


After Loach#1 appeared sick, I decided to take a coarse of action. The water smelt slightly "fishy". The tank was due for a heavy cleaning anyways.
I placed the fish in a separate tank for a day.
I emptied their large tank, bleached it and thoroughly rinsed it. I also did the same for the Power filter and replaced the carbon filter pad with a brand new one.
The tank itself had 1 live plant in it which had black looking algae on it and otherwise wasn't very healthy looking. When I pulled it out, it didn't feel slimey or gross.
I also removed the fake plants which were also pretty ugly in appearance but had no slimey feel to it.
I added new stone base, and 5 new fake plants to the tank after rinsing both.
Filled with tap water (well-water).
Added Seachem Prime, Pristine, and Stability as directed.

Fish went back in the tank the next day without issue. It's been about 5 days since they went back in the tank
Loach#1 continued to exhibit the same signs noted above. As of today, the fish is still in the same state. I don't know how its still alive
Loach #2 was healthy, exuberant, and 100% normal up until I went to work yesterday morning. I returned to work to find the fish dead on the bottom of the tank.
Plecos are still fine, no issues

Yesterday, the tank had a fishy/algae type smell to it. The top of the water seemed to have a film-like appearance to it with the light on. the air stone and filter were making this surface-sudz on the top of the water. The plants and decor in the tank had this slime feel to it as did the filter and air stone hose. There was no noticeable algae to the naked eye. I took them out and washed them off again. I changed 90% of the water out again last night. As of this morning, it is good. No more film on the top and the fishy/algae smell isn't as potent. I will check for an update when I arrive home

Upon changing out the water yesterday I noticed a lot of fish feces and uneaten food stirred up in the water that was sitting on the bottom(A LOT). Keep in mind it was only 5 days since I emptied this tank and put all new décor inside. I am going to switch to a pelleted food but this doesn't help explain why the filtration appears to be doing nothing. There is a lot of water flow in the tank with this filter and the air stone going.

I think Loach #1 is not salvageable at this point. I think his healthy friend died as a result of whatever bloomed in the tank. Pleco's are hardy.
Do I need a different filter that does a better job keeping the tank manageably clean? Is there anything to do for this Loach who apparently has 9 lives. Do I need to put anything in the tank or clean it fully again to fix my issue?

Any other insight?

 

My best guess about the death of your loach is that when you cleaned the tank as thoroughly as you did, you removed the majority of your beneficial bacteria. That in turn caused a crash in your cycle, and then an ammonia spike. This Is likely what killed the loach. Now you essentially need to cycle the tank again. Read up about fish in cycling. Test your water daily with an API master test kit. Water change daily if you have to, to keep ammonia and nitrite levels safe. You can also add 5x prime dose to detox these for 24hours. Use a bottled bacteria to support the cycle.

Oh and probably best to upgrade to a larger tank, as 25g is way too small for the fish you are keeping. Plecos are heavy waste producers and will foul the water very quickly in such a small tank.

 

Glad you came here! You really have a mess on your hands now. Bleaching, scrubbing and throwing away your filter media pretty much destroyed your biological balance in the tank. You'll need to go through the process of establishing a whole new bacteria colony now to keep your fish alive and healthy. That tank is way too small for the fish you have in there. What kind of plecos do you have? You need to look up the fish you have and get an appropriate sized tank. We can help you cycle this one with the fish in it and at the same time, cycle an appropriate tank with no fish (using pure ammonia) to prepare it for the fish. I suggest that you get a good aquarium test kit (API Master test kit is the one I use and recommend) and some Seachem Prime to protect your remaining fish from the ammonia and nitrites that are going to accumulate now that all your beneficial bacteria is gone. Some info you need:
https://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htmhttps://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfi...t-freshwater-beginner-important-topics.14296/

 

So I just have basic 5 in 1 aquarium test strips on hand. My nitrites and nitrates are measuring at 0. Or very near 0. PH 6.5. Kh at 80. GH at 30. Ph might be a tad low?

Unfortunately the tank isn't going to get any bigger. I donr have the space to put a 50+ gallon tank at this time not the time to dedicate to a tank that size.

The plecos were very small for many years and they are over 10 yrs now and big. I got them for algae reasons many years ago when I did have a bigger tank.

Loach #1 is doing much better today, he is upright and active but floating tail down, head upright halfway to near the surface. His gill action is still quite elevated. He appears to try to be eating the bubbles in the surface but his mouth does not move like an eating fish. Its propped open and I don't believe he can eat.

His tail fin does appear to have some sort of fungus on it today. Maybe tail rot?

Also, I am seeing some slime on the faux plants again. So the big water change that occurred yesterday didnt help flush out what was already there.

I am going to try to upload a photo of the algae/slime on the plant, a photo of one of the Plecos and some photos of the sick Loach. No idea what kind of Plecos I have but they're nothing special









Here is the algae slime

 

Here is the algae slime View attachment 629852

Your problem now isn't algae or slime. It's going to be ammonia first, then high nitrites. I suggest that you get a good test kit and some Seachem Prime as I said before. I suspect your other clown loach died because of poor water conditions (probably high nitrates) and this one has the same problem. All I can suggest, is to keep the water clean and find a new home with an appropriate tank for those plecos. If they are 10 years old, they should be well over 16 inches long by now. The one pictured is a common Pleco and they can exceed 20 inches at maturity. You can try treating the loach with some furan 2 and kanaplex but it appears that his skin is already beginning to peel off and he may have sepsis as well.
It's sad, I had some clown loaches that grew to an enormous size and were incredibly entertaining to watch. They swam in a group, would often sleep together in a pile or on their backs and would make clicking/popping noises at the surface when they were eating or playing. They would often swim into my hands when I reached into the aquarium.
Some reading for you:
https://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/catfish/Plecostomus.phphttps://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htmhttps://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/forums/freshwater-aquarium-discussion.15/

 

I noted in my original post that I have seachem prime and have been administering it as directed since the tank was cleaned

 

Since the problem with this loach predated your cleaning fiasco - I am going to suggest he may have an issue with internal parasites.

This most likely also effected loach #2 and wasweakening him - as he died soon after the cleaning-tastrophe threw the entire biological balance of the tank on it's ear....

I would start with an anti-parasitic like API General cure. My current preference is to add an antibiotic to deal with secondary infections that often pop up with parasites.

Often otherwise-healthy fish live a LONG time with parasites so long as stress is minimized and the water quality is good. Add stress and the whole world comes apart all at once and it feels like the world explodes in a giant ball of disease and horrible...

Absolutely continue towards getting your nitrogen cycle reestablished.

 

Has anyone heard of Skinny Disease in clown loaches? Reading up on this after finding it via google, I think this poor soul has skinny disease. While he wasn't recently imported, it's probably been manifesting inside of the fish since it was a juvenile. Despite his exterior scale and fin deteriorization, his physical condition is spot on for this disease

 

Since the problem with this loach predated your cleaning fiasco - I am going to suggest he may have an issue with internal parasites.

This most likely also effected loach #2 and wasweakening him - as he died soon after the cleaning-tastrophe threw the entire biological balance of the tank on it's ear....

I would start with an anti-parasitic like API General cure. My current preference is to add an antibiotic to deal with secondary infections that often pop up with parasites.

Often otherwise-healthy fish live a LONG time with parasites so long as stress is minimized and the water quality is good. Add stress and the whole world comes apart all at once and it feels like the world explodes in a giant ball of disease and horrible...

Absolutely continue towards getting your nitrogen cycle reestablished.

I have to disagree. This loach has absolutely no evidence, at least in the photos. As a matter of fact, there are no common aquarium parasites that cause the skin to peel off fish. I think treating him with an antiparasitic would be a waste of time and money. At this point, I don't think any treatment will help but I would strongly suggest, if your going to treat him, start with an antibacterial medication. I believe, he has been stressed and his skin integrity compromised (skin peeling, fin rot) by prolonged poor water conditions and may be suffering from nitrate poisoning/shock based on the fact that he had gradually developed his symptoms over the last 3 weeks, and his tankmate, an apparently healthy loach, died suddenly after a massive water replacement.
I offer this link as just one general reference that describes somew of the symptoms and causes of niitrate shock and poisoning. There are many more and better sources of information than only this one website.

Has anyone heard of Skinny Disease in clown loaches? Reading up on this after finding it via google, I think this poor soul has skinny disease. While he wasn't recently imported, it's probably been manifesting inside of the fish since it was a juvenile. Despite his exterior scale and fin deteriorization, his physical condition is spot on for this disease

I don't think so. You've had him living in deplorably stressful conditions for a loach, for years. Skinny disease doesn't cause skin peeling, fin rot, loss of appetite etc. Sorry.

 

Deplorable stressful conditions? Wow. Um no. He had a paired loach and they lived very happy in the tank for a few years. They were suggested to us and sold to us by a very reputable high end aquarium store in the area based on the size of tank we had. They have a log in the tank and spend most of their day hanging out in their log and quietly swimming about.

Any animal with a parasitic infection may seem normal for prolonged periods of time until the parasite can reach a point of damaging organs and taking over the body in stressed conditions. This loach could've been harboring an internal parasite for awhile (loaches are wild caught) andnit suddenly took a turn for the worse.

The one thing that is indicative of skinny disease, for me, is the fact that he has the indentation behind the eyes on the skull and has slowly thinned along his spine. This fish clearly developed this as it lost weight and basically became a case of Chronic Wasting

If you read my post I tested the water with an API kit after the water change and every day since and there are 0 nitrites and nitrates appearing in the tank.

Many hard knocking aquarium folks would agree that when dealing with an internal worm parasite or you suspect there is one, bleaching and thoroughly cleaning all equipment with the tank while treating the fish is necessary, otherwise you never fully kill the lifecycle of the parasite, just stun them

This is why I inquired and took the actions to flush the tank and sanitize it, which may have ultimately killed the other loach, but the 2 plecos are no worse for the wear.

Sadly since this fish has reached a point of not being able to eat, treating it with Levamisole is unlikely to result in any positive outcome.

And just an FYI, none of his skin is falling off or scraping off at all. But he has the appearance of lost pigmentation. Almost like the appearance Velvet has when on a fish.