Series of medications.

[Vyache]

My clown loaches are still sick. I had 15 clown loaches in a 135 gallon tank along with a bunch of bala sharks, congo tetras and cory cats (and some various others). The clown loaches started gasping and stopped eating, I have treated the tank with various medications over the past couple months, but each time I cure one ailment they seem to come down with something different. At first I treated them for Ich with a variety of medications, Rid Ich, Clout, Prevent Ich, and Aquarisol. THeir white spots went away but then they developed what seemed to be velvet. That went away and now they seem to have a whitish film like a fungus or bacterial infection. One of them has fins that are raw and eaten away at the end. So far three have died at various times. I decieded that I need to seperate them from the rest of the fish and treat them in a smaller tank. Treating an entire 135 gallon tank is way to expensive. I captured the eight worst looking clowns and two cory cats that also have cloudy patches and placed them into a twenty gallon aquarium. Its surely overcrouded, but I can't seem to find a better way to do it. I'm starting out by treating them with Triple Sulfa. The clown loaches that I left in the 135 gallon tank look like they have almost fully recovered. I'm a bit worried that if I do get the 20 gallon clowns cured that they will just get sick again in the 135 gallon tank, but Arrgh, what to do? I've got some questions for those of you oput there that may be able to help.

Will the fish be reinfected after I put them back into their large tank? How can I prevent this?

What other medications should I give them to make sure all pathogens are eliminated? I've heard that some people have a regiment of medications that they give to new fish that they aquire before putting them into their main tanks. If you do this, what medications do you use?

 

[YZFR1rider]

I think that the whitish stuff on your fish is called like a cotton disease. Well I wish I could help more but I'm still learning my self. Good luck.

Matt

 

[colesea]

Triple Sulfa is one of the better medications to use, and definately treat those you have in the q-tank with it. Another medication I have had success with is Maracide, which I used for a cloudy body (bacterial infection of the mucus menbrane)

You probably won't eliminate all the pathogens from you system, especially 135 gallons, unless you run the system with a bleach solution for about three weeks. That would require removing all the fish/plants/inverst, making 10% bleach in your tank, stirring the gravel every day, and chaning the entire tank at least once a week to refresh the solution. You can say bye-bye to your healthy bacteria as well with this method and you will have to re-cycle your tank.

The best you can do is try to keep your fish as healthy as possible so that disease in your tank cannot become oppotunistic on an immunocompromised (aka stressed) fish. Water change your 135 gallon tank as often as possible so you can remove the pathogens as they develops. Many cyistic or sesial stages of diseases are resistant to medications, only the free-swimming stage can be killed. Frequent gravel vaccuuming and glass cleaning, as well as filtration maintance (cleaning media, hoses etc) will help get rid of the cysts or sesial stuff stuck to grave, glass, decor, etc.

Next time you purchase fish, stick them immediately in the q-tank, not your main aquarium. Leave them in the q-tank a minimum of four weeks. It will take approximately two weeks for most diseases to show up if they have them, four weeks is a good waiting time to make double sure. If the fish turn out to be sick in the q-tank, it will be less expensive to treat, and you won't introduce the disease into your main tank.

Also, you must continue treatment with all medications beyond the recommened time on the package. Always double the treatment time recommened, then add one week extra for good measure. Again, this is because most cysts and other life stages are resistant to the medication. When you stop treatment, the next generation will hatch into free-swimmers and simply re-infect your fish again.

The only other threatment I can think of to eliminate the pathogens from your 135 gallon tank would be to remove all the fish/plants/inverts, turn the heat up to a good 86-90oF, and leave the tank completely devoid of life for four to six weeks. What this will do is starve the pathogens, for without the fish host, they cannot complete their life-cycle. The higher temps make them cycle faster.

~~Colesea

 

[SoulFish]

if its fish fungus which is like pieces of cotton on the fish, Malachite Green or Methylene Blue or a 3% salt bath, also good water quality and higher temperature can help repel attacks, many medications are also harmful to loaches so id research them first, clout and some other ich medicines can kill them

if its not cotton just cloudyness it could be something else, where is the cloudiness

you could also look around here http://www.fish-disease.com/Diseases.htm


other than that colesea said bout everything
and colesea, immunocompromised, wow

 

[Vyache]

Thanks Colesea, I really apreciate the time you must have put into that post. I kind of figured everyone would start in reading my post and decide to skip it. You can imagine my frustration about my clown loaches, they are my favorite fish, and they have been sick for more of the time that I have owned them not. I have been keeping my water conditions tip top the whole time. There are three main problems in my tank.
The first that I see is that the medications themselves are weakening the fish. I definately suspect a bacterial infection on the skin this time.
Second, I haven't been quarentining all my fish purchases.
Third, the tanks are probably overcrowded. I need to get rid of some fish but I just can't decide which ones. I started out understocked but my fish really grew fast. I still don't have problems with water quality due to overstocking, but the disease sharing is definitely there.
Perhaps my New Years resolution will be to keep tanks stocked to limits counting each fish as fully grown. I'm sure I can enjoy a limited number of healthy fish more than a bunch of sick ones.

 

[Vyache]

I thought of two more sources of trouble with my tanks.
I spoil my fish with live tubifex worms. So far I haven't had any problems with visable parisites, but I wouldn't doubt that these contibute new pathogens every time I introduce them to the tank.
Another potential problem I just thought of while reading a fish book is that the problems all started around the time that I decided to give frozen bloodworms a try to replace live tubifex worms. I read before that people could be allergic to bloodworms, but I just now read that some fish can be as well. What would the symptoms of an alergic reaction be? The first signs that something was wrong seemed a bit like a reaction to me. The clown loaches were breathing heavily and quickly, and stopped eating about a week before they broke out in ich. Another interesting fact is that I have noticed that the five clowns that seem to be unaffected seem to have simular coloration paterns. They have coloration of clowns from borneo, while the ones from sumatra seem to be the sick ones. Actually I'll have to look more closely, that was just a quick thought that I have not confirmed.