Loaches Online Forum

Scrap what I said about copper -- I don't think it is there. But also I do not believe that antibiotics or water changes will do much good, so we have very little to go on now. Still, some. Ask on a few more forums, perhaps people have some idea. SF is one suggestion, LF on FB is another, perhaps el...

I do not think 50% water changes will do much. I also do not think that 0.05 reading of ammonia in *new water* (the test you posted is from your well, right?) is significant, this amount will be eaten up by your biofilter very quickly... plus ammonia should not have a disproportionate effect on loac...

nitr I tes, not nitrates. probably not this, but do check. And do check pH and kH too please (hopefully you did not do a w/c yet). Whatever this is, it has set in extremely quick. as a working hypothesis, some disease brought in by the new fish with pathogen reaching the critical levels now. Given t...

A little more. The article you are referring to is misleading IME, it is an attempt to generalize from a couple of cases that were not even diagnosed. There is no such thing as "patchy disease", rather there is a symptom of loss of coloration that may be due to multiple caused, simply hillstreams th...

What were the readings for copper?

durrrrr! OF COURSE the antibiotics in the quarantine tank will have killed off any of the beneficial bacteria that was in the filter media.... If you are sure of the biocycle being dead, move the fish to the main tank. I would not be so sure here, however, amoxicillin is primarily a gram-neg antibi...

I have to disagree, Mike Rain is soft everywhere, and then the water hardens because of minerals in the soil. Therefore, using some limestone in the decoration of a tank would harden the water more or less naturally. I have to disagree, Bas Pels :P Limestone will have more of an effect on pH rather...

Very welcome. Yes, panda garra is a fascinating little fish and I'm sure you would love them. If you are in the US, you can usually find them online. BUT: If I were in your situation (setting up 125g) I'd go one step further and research larger garra species. Panda garra is only 2.5" max, something ...

you are very welcome. No "natural" way, one simply needs to add minerals every time to the new water if one wants to harden it.

A few comments. I keep S.lineolata in a 20L river tank, yes, running off a 402, plus a sponge filter. While current is not a must and your set up should work fine, current does make the fish a bit more active. The intake should be closed properly. I suspect that simply putting nylon bag over the int...

I'd compromise at 78f for now. Yes, Sewellia will be fine even at 82f, but I'd rather keep them more comfortable, clowns will be ok at lower temp. As for plecos: nothing wrong and helps keeping the tank cleaner (I have a few bristlenose plecos in the 125g big loach tank). Garras is another option to...

He appears to be doing SO much better now Sounds like job well done, congratulations! So what was the treatment exactly? As for moving the fish back: I'd not just yet. General rule: do not do changes/treatments when you are not around to observe. Your fish may be lonely in the qtank, but this is no...

Oh dear - I set it up with a layer of substrate after reading somewhere that a bare base could potentially cause issues with other bacteria. This is *potentially* and takes very long time (many months) to develop if ever. I had no problems with keeping loaches and corydoras in a bare tank for exten...

No need to look for a very large quarantine tank, 10g should be ok. The larger is the tank size the more meds you will have to use and -- if the cycle crashes -- the more water changes you will have to do. The treatment tank should be empty, no substrate, so no need to really set it up. You can put ...

It is hard for me to imagine that fighting with a goldfish would result in losing all barbels.... Should I be treating the whole tank or setting up a quarantine tank for him? I've never had to deal with just one fish being affected before. This does happen once in a while. For example, with flex (co...