White flaky/fluffy skin on loach

[AndrewMc]

Ok, forgive me before I start, first time poster/forum user but I've come across something i've never seen before with one of my loaches. I've had a 180 litre tank for about 7 years now. I have two larger goldfish that are about 16 years old (inherited..) and have been in the tank their whole lives, a smaller younger Goldfish (saved from my nieces oxogen starved plastic bowl), a ghost koi which is temporary and heading to a pond soon. More to the point, 2 years ago I bought three dojo or weather loaches, one brown, one gold and one albino. They all settled well with each other minus the grumpy old fish that don't engage with anyone except the other elderly kin. As of today I noticed one of the loaches had a white flake on its side and as I waited to see it a bit more I noticed its whole face was a bit strange. I know they don't have scales so I was thinking some kind of fungus so I done a full water change and added some tonic salt for the sake of trying something until I know what it is. I've added some photo's so if anyone has any ideas or experienced this before I'd be so appreciative of
your help!
some help!

 

[Vegetarianpanda]

Don't use aquarium salt with scaless fish, there very sensitive to that stuff. I'd treat with melafix and pimafix as they never harmed my scale less fish. You can even use both at the same time just use carbon filter to remove it after your done a full round of treatment so about a week.

I'd say most likely fungus but could be bacterial related. Doesn't look like ick/parasites though. If you can only get one go with pimafix as ita more for fungel whyll melafix is more bacterial or for open wounds

 

[AndrewMc]

Don't use aquarium salt with scaless fish, there very sensitive to that stuff. I'd treat with melafix and pimafix as they never harmed my scale less fish. You can even use both at the same time just use carbon filter to remove it after your done a full round of treatment so about a week.

I'd say most likely fungus but could be bacterial related. Doesn't look like ick/parasites though. If you can only get one go with pimafix as ita more for fungel whyll melafix is more bacterial or for open wounds

Thank you for responding! much appreciated, i'll try this.

 

[Vegetarianpanda]

Thank you for responding! much appreciated, i'll try this.

Your welcome, hope your loach makes a speedy recovery.

 

[Dojo1983]

Ok, forgive me before I start, first time poster/forum user but I've come across something i've never seen before with one of my loaches. I've had a 180 litre tank for about 7 years now. I have two larger goldfish that are about 16 years old (inherited..) and have been in the tank their whole lives, a smaller younger Goldfish (saved from my nieces oxogen starved plastic bowl), a ghost koi which is temporary and heading to a pond soon. More to the point, 2 years ago I bought three dojo or weather loaches, one brown, one gold and one albino. They all settled well with each other minus the grumpy old fish that don't engage with anyone except the other elderly kin. As of today I noticed one of the loaches had a white flake on its side and as I waited to see it a bit more I noticed its whole face was a bit strange. I know they don't have scales so I was thinking some kind of fungus so I done a full water change and added some tonic salt for the sake of trying something until I know what it is. I've added some photo's so if anyone has any ideas or experienced this before I'd be so appreciative of
your help!
some help!

Hiya, i've got 5 big loaches in a 125litre tank and they get a worse version of this, put simply, it's a build up of amonia that can cause it, it burns their skin first which appears white, flakey, sometimes it looks like wee spikes - this made me think a fungal infection aswell. My water's crystal clear but i read into it and you can have the clearest water and still end up with dodgy amonia levels. The tank gets hoovered most days, water change every few days to keep the amonia levels down and avoid over feeding. Plenty of oxygen too. , Antibiotics usually mess the filter biome up. Oh, make sure there's no dying algae up the side of the tank or anywhere on the fish accessories, releases amonia/gases into the water as it breaks down which irritates loach skin...