Sick clown loaches

[dperk]

I'm new here and need some help. I have 10 clown loaches in my 125 gallon African (mbuna) tank. I have already lost one and two more are showing symptoms. They are active and eating like normally, but their heads are very thin and boney looking.

They have been in this tank with no problems for around 4 years.

Any suggestions?

[Diana]

Clown Loahces can get several diseases and parasites that take a while to show up. The thin fish in spite of eating sounds like a complex of diseases referred to as Skinny Disease.

Have a look here at this site for some articles and some threads about it.

I would:
1) Remove the Clown Loaches from the hard water tank, and set them up in their own tank.
2) Gradually start lowering the GH, KH and TDS of the new tank. Take about a month of small changes to bring the water chemistry more in line with what these fish are accustomed to and evolved to handle.
3) Begin treatment with medication for internal worms. Alternate this with antibiotics until you have done at least 3 treatments for worms, and 2 or more rounds of antibiotics. Since Skinny Disease is not one specific organism you may need to try a couple of products to see which will help the most. I would start with Levamisole. This is a worming medicine available in several forms for livestock. (Again, lots of good information here at this site about the forms of Levamisole and its availability in different countries) Levamisole also boosts the immune system.