help with my Hillstream Loach

[faerieharlot]

Hello, this is my first post here, so I hope I'm making this in the correct forum, but I deperately need help regarding my Hillstream Loach. I've had it for about two months by itself in a 2.5 gal. aquarium (used to have a filter until that broke the week I got my loach). It's been doing absolutely splendid, until today when I medicated all my tanks against an outbreak of ick. Now my poor loach doesn't seem to be able to stick to the glass anymore. It tries to stick, manages for a minute, then falls off and lays there on its back on the bottom of the tank.

Could the medication have done something to it? I'm currently using APPlus+ brand Cure-Ick. I'm going to go ahead and put my loach in a quarantine tank without medication and hope for the best, but if anyone else has any imput I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

-Alex

 

[fishboy]

Wait... so you have no filter? Bad thing. Get a filter on there. Hillstream loachs need water with high O2 content, so a non-filter tank probably isn't helping. I would try to at least get water movement in the tank, if not a full blown filter. What is the temperature?


Most ich medications contain malachite green, and the hillstream loach, being a scaleless fish, is extremely sensitive to it. Could you read off the ingredients?

HTH

Daniel

 

[ecotank]

If the hillstream loach was by itself in a 2.5 gallon tank, why did you medicate it for ich?

Most loaches don't do well with ich medicines, in fact a full dose of most ich meds will kill several types of loaches. remove him from the meds and make sure to remove any traces of the meds before he goes back in that tank.

Hillstream loaches are found in fast running streams, therefore need water flow, no filter is the opposite of what this fish needs, and a 2.5g tank is pretty small for the habitat this fish needs.

 

[trouthead]

Welcome to the tank

Hillstream loaches are scaleless fish and should be medicated with great care (normally a reduced dosage).

Does the instructions to your ich medication mention scaleless fish?

I believe that you are probably correct in removing the loach from the tank being treated, as it appears to be suffering from the effects of the medication.

 

[420Loach]

hello and welcome.

whoa youve got a hillstream loach in a 2.5 gallon tank? thats way too small of a tank to keep them in. they get up to four inches long so they probably dont need a HUGE tank, but id say one big enough to get a nice current going for it. heres some reading on them.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/articles/hillstream.shtml

a good way to avoid harming your loach with meds is to use aquarium salt to treat ich. its always worked for my loaches.

hope he pulls through!

 

[TaffyFish]

That's a good read, have had my hillstream loach for just over a month now and I haven't had to clean algae off the glass since! He's in a coldwater tank with fancy goldfish, WCM minnows and a dojo loach and seems perfectly compatible, none of the others bother the little loach at all, he's out and about doing his thing all day long. I do have a highly oxygenated tank as the canister outlet employs a diffusor, this also gives him the fast current down the back of the tank that he enjoys.

I hope yours recovers in the Q tank faerieharlot. (...and that's the first time I've ever seen Posts: 0 !)

 

[bingoboy]

my clown loaches popped up ick out of nowhere...not much just a few specks per loach that looked like pinprick sized spots. i used half dosage of maricide for the recomended times on the box and it cleared up mostly, there is still a spot or two on one of the loaches but that should be gone soon (it better be )