New user...distraught

[2bocat]

Greetings all. I've enjoyed looking around the archives and such, but I still need help. I've kept a heavily-planted, 55 gallon, CO2 supplemented, freshwater aquarium for several years. Over the last year, my one goal has been to raise clown loaches, but I'm failing like I've never failed before. Over the last week, I've lost 8 of my 10 clowns. Truth is, I've never been able to keep clowns alive for any substantial length of time. My water chemistry appears to be good (pH: 6.8, dH: ~6, T: 85F). I've got good flow through the tank from a powerhead plus great water filtration with a new Eheim canister filter and UV sterilizer. The tank has two large flat stones that are blocked up to provide hiding places - plus all the plants. I change out about half the water every week and replace it with RO water (I adjust KH and DH). The loaches get a good diet of mysis shrimp, brine shrimp and flake food. There are only a handful of other small fish in the tank - some danios, tetras, a few cory catfish, and two elderly upside down catfish. My other fish are fine and have been in the tank for many months/years.

I just don't understand my problem with the loaches, and it's just killing me to keep killing these lovely fish. The dead fish either turn up dead with no warning or obvious ill effects, or recently, their stomach area bloats up and they quit eating then die in a few days. If anyone has some words of wisdom, I could sure use them.

Thanks much,
Glenn

I just did a little more searching in the archives and found this post:

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=132

which contains a picture of a couple of clowns that look much like mine....

[chefkeith]

It sounds like some sort of bacterial problem (dropsy) or poisoning to me.

What ferts do you use in your tank?
UV sterilizers don't go well with some chemicals or minerals (such as chelated copper).

Have you feed them any live foods?

I've always had problems with tubiflex worms. They'd occasionally cause dropsy to my Tiger Barbs.

[shari]

http://www.loaches.com/faq_parasites.html

Above is a link to momfish's disease treatment section on the old LOL. It may help.

Also, are you getting your clowns from the same lfs each time? If so, they may be coming home with either parasites, or parasite caused illness. The bloating looks like dropsy, which is not always curable, unfortunately.
The good news is that it generally is not contagious to other fish, which may explain why your other fish don't succumb.


Do you quarantine fish before adding them to the tank? Clowns are being bred now, but most are still wild caught, which means that they come to the importers with all the possible issues facing wild caught fish, like parasites, diseases, etc. Shipping most likely will exacerbate any issues fish may have, so by the time they hit the lfs they are in a weakened state. Taking them home will be yet another move that won't do them any good.

hope the link helps,

shari

[2bocat]

My loaches get frozen cubes of brine shrimp, etc - no live food. Thanks Shari for the link. I too have read of the perilous path a loach takes before arriving at the LFS. Mine have come from a variety of sources, but they've all died after a short while. I have no quarantine tank set up. I tried for awhile, but the maintenance of yet another tank, even as a hospital tank was more than I could take (or find room for actually). I looked into dropsy, but it sounds like folks are guessing what to do to cure it...ie: it's a symptom, not a disease. The UV sterilizer should help me in my battle, but I'll check my fertilizers. The UV light is almost a necesity to keep the algae blooms at bay.

Thanks all...
Glenn

[Bitey]

What is your water change procedure? Do you have your own RO filter?

It would be quite unusual but there could be an osmoregulation problem brought on by your water or whatever you're adding to it.

I've had clown loaches for years and really have had no problems. I have UV, no plants, no lights, and few decorations. I feed them mostly Hikari sinking carnivore pellets and a thawed out shrimp a few times a week.

[2bocat]

Thanks...not sure what you mean though. I purchase my RO water, let it warm overnight to room temperature, check it with my test kits, typically add a dechlorinator, then dump it in the tank. I'm going to stop using the liquid fertilizer and see what happens for now...

[qumqats]

I purchase my RO water, let it warm overnight to room temperature, check it with my test kits, typically add a dechlorinator, then dump it in the tank.

Room Temp?!! you're not heating it to the temp of the tank?

Are you not heating the tank? Or are you shocking the fish in the tank when you dump this cold water into it?

Water change water should be as close in ALL parameters to the water in the tank as you can make it. This includes temperature.

[shari]

adding a fairly large quantity of water that is much cooler than the tank temp will certainly stress clown loaches. If your tank temp is 85F unless you keep your house really warm, you are causing HUGE stress to the clowns in particular and to the other fish as well.

Are you purchasing your water from the lfs? If so, do you test it for pH, etc before adding it? If the parameters of your tank water are not close to the water you add back in, all kinds of trouble will start.

Match up the water params of the RO with the params of your tank before you do the next change. Let us know.

[chefkeith]

Are you adding pure RO water to your tank during water changes?

For large water changes, adding just RO water straight to the tank can cause osmotic shock to the fish. Osmotic shock happens when the TDS of the tank water is rapidly changed. RO buffers or Tap water shoud be added to RO water before adding it to the tank.

Tank water temperature should not fluxuate more than 2F degrees either.

[2bocat]

Room T is 74F. Room T water is not dumped back in all at once. I've got two 100W heaters in the tank. Room T water is added back in over the course of ~ 1 hr. By going slowly, I try to ensure that the tank T drops no more than 3 degrees.

Having said that, your advice is well taken. I'm going to back off a bit from the 20 gal/wk water change to 10 gal/wk. The plants can take it, and I'm pretty much getting sick of large water changes. At least my new Eheim canister filter primes as advertised as opposed to the Fluval 304 that is now taking up space in the garage. Tank water is also amazingly more clear now...just like the ol' clowns like. Adjusting the water chemistry in the 5 gal drums prior to adding it back in is also a good idea.

I need to look a bit more into "osmotic shock" to see what this involves. Adding "tap" water to the RO water produces catastrophic results in the tank. I'm on a deep aquafer well, which produces two separate but deadly problems: 1) a really exciting level of CO2 exists in the well water unless you let it sit out for several hours, and 2) from time to time, mostly in the summer, there exist some bacteria that produces a mess of slime once you raise the T from subsurface earth to 85F....ahhh, life in the country. I have learned the hard way that if nothing else, rapid changes in CO2 must give loaches the bends, or perhaps "osmotic shock", because adding well water will often kill clown loaches in a matter of minutes. The slime is a bit less of a death threat, but coats the plants and plugs the filters - although I haven't tried it since adding the UV filter...but I digress.

Thanks for the additional advice. If I'm nothing else, I'm persistent. No more loach deaths to report since I've joined this forum either!

Oh, yes, the RO water. I take my empty 5 gallon drums to grocery store where I fill them from the RO dispenser. I'm aware that grocery store RO water is exactly as good as the grocery store RO water filter maintenace, so it always gets checked. I've actually taken "RO" water back and asked them to change the filter. My LFS is about to start selling it which will be a big improvement.

Thanks again...insomnia tonight
-gle

[chefkeith]

I'm sure you've heard of ph shock. Many now know that pH shock is a myth. Instead it's the TDS shock ,aka Osmotic shock, that can stress, injure, or kill fish.

[Martin Thoene]

Found this excallent info on Osmotic Shock.

http://www.marineaquariumadvice.com/Str ... artTwo.htm

Martin.