make me fat!

[poeticpyro]

the clowns hardly "shoal" the two oldest ones still do, but the two new ones (coinsidentally the oddballs) don't shoal with them, sometimes they'll be together.
changes since the death:
-no clicking by any loach
-shy
-lazy during the afternoon, but they're up like crazy in the morning and late night.
-lack of interest in their normal shrimp pellets.

any help/information is, as always, much appreciated, thanks so much for everything so far!

[Wendie]

For some reason I have a lot of problems with the various frozen BS and bloodworms. I feed perhaps two BW to a fish and bingo... russian roulette as to who gets sick. I don't have any other problems. It's just when I feed either live or frozen food.

[poeticpyro]

the clowns hardly "shoal" the two oldest ones still do, but the two new ones (coinsidentally the oddballs) don't shoal with them, sometimes they'll be together.
changes since the death:
-no clicking by any loach
-shy
-lazy during the afternoon, but they're up like crazy in the morning and late night.
-lack of interest in their normal shrimp pellets.

any help/information is, as always, much appreciated, thanks so much for everything so

and now they are trying to "breathe" or something from the surface.. what the hell is going on? i removed the large hiding places and put in about 6 smaller ones. water perams are good. 0 ammonia 0 nitrates temp 79, they're still not clicking and hardly eating.. se above changes that are bulleted (-). thanks... please help!

[EdenAU]

Your consistenly 0 nitr-A-tes have got me confused...

Are you sure your tank didn't re-cycle on you at some stage?
What are your nitr-I-tes?

I do daily/twice daily/every second day (depends on what else I have to do) water changes, and my nitr-A-tes are still always giving a reading (less than 5, but the test isn't as pure "yellow" as zero)

I keep my temp around 82

My loaches aren't always swimming, sometimes they just like "lazing" around in the tunnel

Gasping/breathing at the top can indicate a lack of oxygen in the water...
You need to check the pH and hardness (kH & gH).

[poeticpyro]

sorry.. nitrites are zero... nitrates are low but i don't know how to translate the reading.. the dip-stick just changes colors..

[mikev]

I suspect that the symtomes you are describing are not connected to water params or oxygen, but rather to either your "little wormy things" or the medicine you used to deal with them.

Here the possibilities include:
1. Heavy internal damage by worms (==your med failed)
2. Reaction to medication (==you med either succeeded or failed, but caused new problems).
3. Reaction to dead (killed by med) worms inside loaches.

Here 3. is the Good case, 1. and 2. are Bad.

Since you have never mentioned exactly which med you use(d) (you only said something about "white powder" -- the effective med is yellow), nothing further can be guessed.

hth

[poeticpyro]

it's jungle brand... parasite clear... i think it worked, but the loaches are just shy and they'll only eat frozen foods. grrrrr... now they're spoiled. what do i do to get them back onto eating their pellets? i miss the clicking.

[mikev]

Let us hope that I'm wrong, but I see this:

* you had multiple "little wormy things" inside the dead loach -- quite likely roundworms of some species
* your dead loach has been in the tank for a year ==> it was infected in your tank, meaning that this is a direct worm
* ASAIK Jungle parasite clear is not effective against these (you can always check the components one by one).
* you have continuing symptomes in other fish (breathing/air)

Quite possibly, it is the scenario 1 above, and the infection is still continuing.

Treat.

[libingboy]

parasite clear's active ingredients are ineffective against nematodes the last time i checked, which is why i was still looking for an alternative.

[poeticpyro]

well here's the story now...
all 4 loaches are shoaling happily
i stopped treating them the night before last and i have had no breathing difficulty and they're clicking happily and greedily eating. could they not be infected? even the paler ones are darkening and plumping up quite nicely... and from what i understand they don't click unless they're happy. they're dancing right now as a matter of fact, so cute.

let's just hope it was only with one clown and whatever it was has been taken care of.

[TammyLiz]

I tend towards wishfull thinking myself, so I can understand your desire to just sit back and hope that there is nothing wrong with your loaches. However, since I'm a little removed from the situation I can tell you that logically, the chances of them not being infected are pretty slim. You've had the parasites in your tank for long enough to kill one of the loaches, so the current ones have definitely been exposed enough to get them. You've already seen how once the loach starts showing signs of illness it is pretty close to death so it's probably not a good idea to wait until they show signs of illness--at that point it may be too late to do anything.

Parasites in the intestines eat the nutrition of the host. Just because the loaches are eating does not mean that they are not infested with worms. I would venture to guess that parasites would make them want to eat more. They could be eating dinner and getting little from it if the worms are in their bellies using the nutrition for their own growth instead of that of the loaches. When the fish start to refuse food its probably because the worms have messed them up so bad they can't even digest properly and they're too close to death to save.

Did you know that you can get this kind of parasites? People can and do get them. I know someone who has had roundworms, the same thing or close to the same thing your fish are dealing with, come out in a pile in the toilet after doing a parasite treatment along with a strict diet to get rid of them. Since you've been exposed I would advise you to keep in mind that if at any time in the future you start feeling really tired and the doctors tell you there's nothing wrong with you (they like to pretend that there are no parasites in the US, only in third world countries), consider doing a parasite cleanse.

So, the short of it is that if it were my tank and my fish, I would treat with whatever mikev told me was best, since the med you used doesn't kill the type of worms you had/have. You already know they were there in great numbers in one loach, and even just one worm in one other loach will eventually spread to all your fish. Parasites are survivors. And multipliers. And they're gross.

[poeticpyro]

i took them off of treatment because they're getting a lot better. they're nice and plump, they're breathing normally, color is beautiful. i'm still feeding them three times a week with "pepso food" they are willingly eating it, which is good.

i know about parasites, i'm a nursing student and i haven't felt bad at all... thank god, but thanks for your concern.

i'll keep tons of varieties of parasite meds on hand, but they're doing well so far so we'll see... thanks.