My little guy is very ill.

[merryn]

hello i'm new. i have a small little clown loach, he's nothing compared to you galiath guys. but i've had him for six years now, he's a tough guy. but he's got this illness that i have no idear what is is.
symtoms:
he's incredibly thin, but got that way in 3 days and is eating fine.
i think he has a internal parisite. i would love the help, anybody know of a cure?

[shari]

If it's skinny disease some have recommended a combo treatment of Maracyn I and II. I treated it successfully with kanacyn and levamisole. If your little guy is still eating but seems to be wasting away, that may be his problem.

Is there any way you could post a picture of him? And tell us more about your tank?

[crazy]

Every one will be asking what your water paremeters tank size filtration are etc. so be ready, but it might be an idea to look through the archives and see if anyone else has posted a similar question as these may have photo's, which might tell you what your litle guy has.

[Mark in Vancouver]

I'm with Shair on this... Go to your fish shop and ask about Maracyn 1 and 2. That's your first course of action. Keep your water clean - do a good 40% water change before you add the medication. Rinse out your filter in spent tank water prior to treatment.

[merryn]

Thanks guys! i hope i can get this medicine soon, i showed my mum and she said we will need a percription for it. but it's a fish medicine so there should be some in a fish store. unluckly we don't have a nice realible healthy town fish shop, we have peter baraks and pets at home, might have to ask there. If they don't have it will a pharmacy? mum says its an antibiotic, but both me and mum are dyslexic so we could of mistook it for something else. i don't think i can get that soon, i have a couple of bacteria killing medicines, parasite medicine and the usaul snti white, velvet, fungus, fin rot stuff can any of these help keep him going until we can get the real stuff? and if not whats the best subistute. i might see if i can get a picture, not very good at the attaching to a post part. but he's a very flat bellied loach, about 3 inches long. are water conditions are fine at the moment, we did the test and the nitrate levels were crazy so we sorted that out. i'll get the readings soon, i still have to do the whole vials of water with a test kit, i want to get one of those sticky level readers soon. Also tiger has no other loach friends, he's in a comuntity tetra, dano, gurami, cat fish, bristle nose, tank. we haven't been sucsesful with loaches, but then agian he came from a local pet shop that closed down a year ago, and all the other loaches are PAH and p. baraks.

[merryn]

right. we got some medicine to help. hopefully it will work. it's not the same but the shop keeper ( we managed to find a near by speacialist town aquriam shop) siad what was happening was he had a bacterial infection wasting him away. so we got the medicine and put it in. i'll update you with how it goes

[merryn]

unfortunatly it's not working. he still seems to be ill.

[Patti-Mc]

Hi there everyone. I was looking around this forum and I thought I should weigh in on this "skinny" disease topic. About 30 years ago I found what seemed to be a miracle cure for this condition - epsom salts. I don't know why it worked, I only know that it did! Here is what happened:

I had been keeping fish for about 2-3 months, and when I saw some baby clown loaches at the fish store, I fell in love with them! I think I bought about 3 or 4 of them. After a couple of weeks I noticed that one was not doing nearly as well as the other three. It was eating, but getting thinner by the day. This went on for a while - maybe a month. The poor fish got so weak that I actually held it in my hand just under the water surface and put the brine shrimp right in front of it so it could eat. It was as skinny as any of the pictures that you all are showing.

My mother had kept fish since she was a little girl so she knew a lot about it. I told her about my poor little clown. Then she said (I'll never forget this) You ARE putting the epsom salts in the water aren't you? I said no, just the de-chlorinator and the aquarium salt. She said to put in Epsom salt at the rate of 1 tsp. per 5 gallons, so of course I did, not necessarily because I thought it would cure my clown, but just because she said to.

The next 10 days were an unbelievable experience. That little clown started to gain weight, began to join in with the others, got all energetic, and honestly, in 10 days he looked just like the others! They all went on to grow big and lived for a long time.

This is my story and if I hadn't seen it all with my own eyes I might not believe it. I have told a few different people about it at the fish stores and nobody really takes me seriously. The only response I ever got that showed that the guy believed me was "maybe the Epsom salt acted as a laxative (one of its qualities) and the fished passed the internal parasites."

That may be the explanation - I don't really know. But it would be worth a try if your fish is really going downhill. If this is helpful to anyone, let me know. I still love clown loaches (I have 6 right now) and I'd do just about anything to help clowns live successfully in everyone's aquariums.