Loaches Online Forum

I had a malfunction with my aquarium heater yesterday, and the temperature shot up to over 90 degrees! It was probably at that temp for about six hours. Most of my fish seem okay, with the exception of my largest clown loach. He's swimming close to the top, has popped-out looking eyes, and seems to be disoriented. I did several water changes to bring down the temp to 80 degrees, where it is now holding, but I don't know what to do to help this poor guy. He's around 5" long, and I thought he would be the toughest, but he seems to be in a bad way.

Is there any hope for him?

Any ideas how to help him get better?

You should increase the aeration and water movement in the tank with powerheads and airstones, and keep the light off so that the fish feels as least stressed as possible.
Good luck,
Emma

Thanks Emma, I set up a second air stone, and put in my backup filter so that there's a little more movement in there. I don't have a powerhead, unfortunately. I have kept the lights off (to help reduce temp), but I will also keep it off to help the stress.

I was going to add salt, but apparently the pictus catfish that I have can't handle it.

Personally I wouldn't add the salt, as your Clown Loaches will not appreciate it either. One other tip to improve aeration is to lower the water level in your tank temporarily so that it is a few inches from the top, which will allow the water from your filter return/spraybar to splash down onto the water's surface, creating more movement and oxygenation.

Emma

Probably obvious, but make sure you replace that heater-- once they've failed once, they'll do it again.

Thanks guys;

I'll keep you posted about his progress.

How's your Clown looking today?
Fingers crossed for good news,
Emma

Thanks for the kind thoughts, but it isn't looking good. He's definately blind, and because of that, he keeps bumping into the glass and decorations. Every time another fish touches him, he freaks out (he practically buried himself at one point). He looks really tired, and spends a lot of time hiding. His colours were good until this morning, when he really "grayed out."

I really don't have a lot of faith.

For anyone following my drama: I had my largest clown loach almost get boiled because of a faulty thermometer. He is recovering! We're still pretty sure that he's blind, but now he's eating and swimming around the tank. He's still very greyed out, and he has a lot of scratches and scars from running into things, but he's still way better than he was.

We have to drop a lot of food on the bottom for him to be able to get some, so it's vacuuming the tank every second day, but that's going to mean really clean water to help with healing those scratches.

Thanks for all of the advice. I'm kinda shocked, because I never thought he'd recover, but I followed all of the advice thinking that I'd make his "last days" comfortable.

If anyone has advice for blind bottom feeders, I'd love to hear it.

That's great news! Keep up with the good water quality and those scratches should heal up just fine.
By the way, even though your fish may be blind, he should be able to find food ok, as they have other senses to help them with locating it. Pellet foods and defrosted frozen foods should sink quite nicely, giving him a helping hand.

Emma