Loaches Online Forum

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum.
I have 2 gold dojo loaches whom up until recently were both very healthy, one is approx 6 months the other is approx 3 months.
The older one has been kind of puffy for the last month, not extremely bloated but a little bit rounder than normal(he's always been a fatty thanks to the way he eats) and when resting on the fake plants they kind of press into his body.
In the past week I've noticed that part of the time he lays on his side and then all of a sudden goes crazy swimming with his head out of the water jumping at the walls of his tank, not sure if he's just trying to escape but ever since he started doing that his whiskers got droopy and a few of them are turning white with a bit of red on them. The younger loach is perfectly healthy which makes me think it's not a water problem. I've recently treated the tank for ich with the API super ich cure then got it up and running again just to have the ich pop up in my angelfish again. When I had the filter out my ammonia levels were up(still low but not 0 like they usually are) nitrite is 0 nitrate is about 20 pH is 7.2 which I've been trying to lower as it's also a recent spike in guessing it has to do with the medication as well. Tank is 45 gallons. Kept at 78F usually but I just pushed it up to 82 to speed up ich treatment again(loach has had no problems with higher temps in the past)
Stocking:
1 blue 3 spot gourami 5"
1 gold gourami juvenile 3"
4 juvenile angelfish 2"
1 full size gold dojo 7"
1 juvenile gold dojo 4"
1 rainbow shark 4.5"
3 female swordtails 2"
1 male swordtail 2"
6 bloodfin tetras 1"

I realize when everyone is full grown the tank would be overstocked but I have a 90 gallon I still have to set up and cycle so tank mates and space will change a bit with a second bigger tank before everyone grows up.
Also forgot to mention I keep the water 4 inches from the top for better splash from the filter so loach hopefully won't make the jump out( tank is covered but has some small gaps if he were really determined) if I can figure out how to insert pictures I will

Hi and welcome. Sorry you have a problem.

The obvious thing is the temperature and while you may think they can handle high temperatures the wealth of advice I have seen suggests they are a low temperature species and I would expect problems outside their recommended range.

I do believe that generally fish are tough and in good conditions their immunity to disease is effective. It is usually when stress or sub-optimal conditions prevail that diseases arise. So my advice is to keep them in optimal conditions.

Otherwise all fish are capable of experiencing problems in the sense that organs can malfunction etc. for no apparent reason. I pride myself on enabling my fish to live long and healthy lives but there have been unexplained exceptions.