Loaches Online Forum

I have lost a couple of my Clown loaches recently and one of my Schistura mahnerti and all three fish showed the same symptoms, they would sit in a corner and twitch and show signs of loss of balance. This had me quite worried but when a couple more clowns and clown barbs started showing similar symptoms I started doing some research and found out some rather interesting stuff.

The symptoms I have already described can be caused by vitamin deficiency namely B1, the symptoms are brought on by the lack of thiamine. Foods such as shellfish and raw fish (flesh) contain thiaminase enzyme which basically breaks down and kills thiamine.

Over the last few months I have fed my big loaches quite a bit more prawn, krill, mussel and cockle. I couldn't work out though why the other fish in the tank didn't seem affected , it was only today that I realised that all the fish in the tank apart from the most recent Clown loaches and Clown barbs had all been wormed so everything is now getting dosed with flubenol.

I Have not fed any shellfish to any fish for just over a week and the Clown Barbs have picked up really well, a couple of Clown loaches are still looking a little unhappy but hopefully after this dose of flubenol they will show signs of improvement, I have also started feeding peas which are high in Vitamin B (thiamine).

Sorry to hear that Mad;

Ive been feeding my Botia tank a mix of prawn and whitefish blended with spinach and bananna since before xmas (near Oct time) and have not seen anything like you have described. Ive also just ordered a load of mussel, squid and cockle for them aswell

Maybe its time for a diet change just incase-you say that the shellfish and fish flesh contain an enzyme that breaks down thiamine-did anything that you looked at state how long the enzyme stay active for? Hours days ect, anything that inhibits the functioning of the enzyme??

Whatever the case, diet change for my guys-more greens and less fish-I don't think that is going to go down to well

Thanks for the heads up

Ashleigh

Mad Duff- Thanks for the heads-up on this. Hopefully, now we can all avoid it by feeding a wide variety. But it is easy to fall into a feeding routine that may not be ideal.

Ashleigh - I don't think the shellfish itself is a bad thing I think it came down to the amount fed, it got to the stage were they were having mysis and mussel on a morning and then cockle and krill on a night along with some prawns.

I have been quite ill since Christmas so it got to the stage of what ever was easiest and I am now kicking myself for it

It has been amazing to see how the fish that were still under the weather have picked up over the last few days, they have responded well to the flubenol treatment and have really enjoyed the shelled peas and brine shrimp flake which are both high in thiamine.

A friend actually rang me up last night and told me to switch a program on about zombie alligators, the alligators were in a lake in Florida and they were dieing and showing similar symptoms to my fish and they also showed cases of Salmon dieing in the great lakes with the same symptoms and in both cases they came to the same conclusion of a deficiency of B1, they actually showed a tank of near dead salmon fry before they added thiamine directly to the tank and within 15 minutes the fish were up and swimming

Mad Duff wrote:Salmon dieing in the great lakes with the same symptoms and in both cases they came to the same conclusion of a deficiency of B1, they actually showed a tank of near dead salmon fry before they added thiamine directly to the tank and within 15 minutes the fish were up and swimming

That is pretty amazing, and on a completly different note links in with my dissertation aswell-how weird is that

The main thing is that you found the cause and have adjusted what was needed

Regarding quantities-I only feed the fish/shellfish in the evening, dry food in the morning. Maybe it moves out of their systems after a few hours

Not worth it for me-changing diet as off tonight


Ashleigh

Ashleigh wrote:Ive been feeding my Botia tank a mix of prawn and whitefish blended with spinach and bananna since before xmas (near Oct time) and have not seen anything like you have described.

I feed recipes similar to what Ashleigh has described but with more meaties and veggies.

For each pound of meaties I also blend 10 centrum multipurpose vitamins and add them to the recipes.

TR

I think it did make a difference that these fish were the only ones that hadn't previously received treatment against internal parasites so it could be that they did have internal parasites / worms and they were adding to the lack of vitamins the fish was getting.

Either way I will feed a lot more veggies and cut down on the quantities of shellfish compared to what I have been feeding recently.

We should add an update into the Home Cooking article? Or a news blurb?

Shari

This thread way styled "Vitamin deficiency" and hence I noted only the centrum multipurpose vitamins.

I also add five blended cloves of garlic for each pound of meaties as the fish seem to enjoy the mixtures much more when garlic is present.

I also add three packets of dry yeast for each pound of meaties.

TR

Just as a reminder: While vitamins are lovely stuff - please keep in mind that adding too much of them might also cause problems (-> Hypervitaminosis) .. especially since fish are quite small they probably need much more minute amounts than us humans, which most of the vitamin pills are made for.

-Connor

Sorry to hear about your loaches, MD, but your research makes very interesting reading. And I hope you feel better soon (I know what its like).

Emma

Defiantly interesting!!

Very intresting input We shall be more vigilant here as well.

There are some excellent specially formulated vitamin products available for fish, such as Vitazin by Waterlife http://www.waterlife.co.uk/waterlife/vitazin.htm. At least with these products you know that the levels of vitamins have been researched and dosed at an appropriate level for aquatic life.

Some of these products are added directly to the tank water and others are added to your frozen foods whilst they are defrosting so that they soak them up.

Emma

Emma Turner wrote:There are some excellent specially formulated vitamin products available for fish, such as Vitazin by Waterlife http://www.waterlife.co.uk/waterlife/vitazin.htm. At least with these products you know that the levels of vitamins have been researched and dosed at an appropriate level for aquatic life.

Some of these products are added directly to the tank water and others are added to your frozen foods whilst they are defrosting so that they soak them up.

Emma

Emma:

The typical published recipes indicate 3 Centrum MultiPurpose tablets per pound of meaties.

Who knows in the long term but in the two year term I believe that the vitamin concentration in my recipes is somewhere near appropriate.

Please note that the vitamin concentration is decreased by feeding red wiggler worms, frozen brine shrimp, frozen blood worms, etc.

If I were not feeding my recipes I would be inducing the vitamins which you quoted into my tank.

TR