Quick question on skinny disease

[SAEdude]

Hello,

I have an african cichlid that I suspect may have skinny disease. He eats, however not overly eagerly as an afican should, and his poop is normal, not white and stringy. When a clown loach has skinny disease, if the poop usually normal or white and stringy?

Thanks

[SAEdude]

Anybody? Very curious to know if loaches with Skinny Disease have white stringy poop?

Thanks.

[starsplitter7]

I have never noticed my skinny loaches with unusual poop. They (loaches and cichlids) may have skinny for different reasons or be affected differently. I have a Q tank with a skinny Dojo. He is being treated with levamisole right now. His main tank is also being treated. I wanted to take him out for some TLC and special food. He has me worried.

[SAEdude]

Thanks for the reply.

[Diana]

Skinny Disease is not a specific diagnosis down to causal organism.
It is more of a condition often caused by the fish being infected with 2 or more diseases or parasites. Often a bacterial infection and an intestinal parasite.
ANY organism, not just Loaches, not just fish, can sure show similar symptoms (low weight in spite of eating a normal amount of food).

I the case of fish, specifically the way the 'disease' is handled here at Loaches, the treatment is usually a pattern of alternating antibiotics and wormers, based on label directions. The schedule usually looks something like this:
Antibiotics 5 days, then water change, activated carbon for 24-48 hours
Wormer 3 days, then water change, activated carbon for 24-48 hours
Repeat same or different antibiotic 5 days, water change, activated carbon 24-48 hours
Wormer 3 days (repeat the same as before), water change, activated carbon 24-48 hours
And so on, alternating meds, and making sure each medicine in cleared from the tank before the next is introduced.

Since different wormers target different groups in internal parasites it would probably be good to do more treatments with a different wormer.

Do not take the 5 day or 3 day pattern as the only way to do this. READ THE LABEL and base the timing on the medication you are using.
Many wormers have a similar treatment schedule: Treat for a few days, then take a break, often a week, then treat again. This targets the worms that are active the first time, then targets worms that might have been only eggs or other non-susceptible stages with the second treatment. The timing between treatments varies with the species of parasite, but so many have a similar enough life style that the packages can have fairly generalized directions. Of course if you can ID the parasite then you would target the most potent active ingredient and the optimum timing to kill that one parasite. Similarly antibiotics can be chosen based on a specific disease, if you can ID it, otherwise the generalized instructions are used.

Do not combine meds unless both are labeled for use with each other.

Levamisol is often one of the first medicines. In addition to its wormer activity it also seems to improve the immune system of the fish.

[mattyd]

I'm not even sure if my sick kubotai loaches have the skinny disease or not. They are appearing listless and are panting heavily. Water conditions are perfect (6ft tank, only about 35 small loaches in tank, so a very low bio-load). Most other loaches in the tank are not bothered at all. I lost my first loach in this tank over 3 months ago, but since I found it floating (probably within 24hours of death), I didn't really have much to go on. Then over the last 2 weeks I've noticed a few of my other kubotai are panting and listless. One of the little Dwarf Chain loaches is also really pale, but at least it is still active with the other sids.

10 days ago I dosed the tank with levamisole. I went with 2mg/Litre of active ingredient. I worked it out to require about 36ml of the "Big L" Pig Dewormer that I have. I left the dose in for 4 days. I have since done two very slow water changes. All fish seemed to love the water change.
I lost one of the most listless of the loaches just after the water change. There are still two Kubotai who aren't doing very well.

I have now tried to remove all the driftwood from the tank, but the loaches love hiding in the holes and gaps of the wood and not moving, so it is frustrating to say the least. Their tank is 6ft x 2ft, and that gives them a LOT of swimming room for a bunch of very quick little fish. Catching the sick looking ones is not going to be easy, but I will be trying that tonight. They'll be going into a quarantine tank once I do get them out.

Can someone help me work out what might be wrong with the fish, what I should do to help them get healthy again, and what I should do immediately to help me from losing any more of these great fish. (Not to mention that they cost $30 AUD each).

The below fish is the one that finally died. It doesn't look as crazy skinny as the yoyo loaches that I see in shops. But, it is no where near as fat as the other 15+ kubotai that i have in the same tank.


This is the levamisole product that I used:

[carolineD]

I think my big, beautiful, male electric yellow and one of my lion heads has this. They largely ignore food and when they do take some in they generally spit it back out. The other fish in the tank seem find at the moment.

What should I do?

[taylor33]

Hello,

I have an african cichlid that I suspect may have skinny disease. http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23222Viagra Online He eats, however not overly eagerly as an afican should, and his poop is normal, not white and stringy. When a clown loach has skinny disease, if the poop usually normal or white and montecrito no 2 stringy?

Thanks

Thanks Diana!
Your comment is very valuable and helped me a lot in understanding the issue I'm currently having..