Loaches Online Forum

Hey everyone,

I have a large school of clowns in my 125g tank, and they recently started developing some sort of fungal infection. The eyes on the smallest and oldest clowns are starting to get cloudy, or develop small white cyst like objects. Water parameters seem fine, and there have been no deaths yet. I keep doing big water changes and treating with Seachem stress guard and para guard, going a little light on the para-guard because I'm treating loaches. Tank temp is averaging in the low 80s, I'm running a bubbler, wavemaker and a 12 hour light cycle. Is there anything else I can do for them? Is there something else I should be looking at? Please help me save my school before something goes off!

Pics?

Fungal infections are rare among fish and in general. Cloudy eyes usually indicate septicemia though the white cysts could indicate a concurrent parasite issue.

Since you're in the Bay Area, you can take your loaches to the UC Davis veterinary hospital. Their number is 530-752-1393. Hit 3 at the main menu and then 3 again to make an appointment.

I had a ~9-year old loach that was breathing extremely rapidly and stopped eating about 2 months ago. Things were looking pretty grim. They gave her(or him) an injection of antibiotics, did a gill biopsy, and even tube fed her. It took about a month but she pulled through and is better than ever now.

Injectable antibiotics are the way to go with fish. Giving antibiotics in the tank water is inefficient and less effective. It also harms your biofilter since most bacterial pathogens in fish are Gram negative as are the biofilter bacteria. They also use antibiotics that you can't buy OTC.

They also do water testing with much better equipment than hobby grade test kits (which are often completely worthless).

here's a picture from two days ago, sorry about the dirty glass

everyone looks the same or better. Still doing water changes and keeping an eye on things. SAE, albino sailfin plec, and tetras are still unaffected. still open to all suggestions.

I saw similar symptoms with my yoyos, golden zebras, and catfish when a toxin was accidentally introduced into the tank.

The cure in my case was to do lots of water changes and put large bags of carbon into the filter outflows, and change them regularly (Daily at first, then weekly). It took a week to start seeing improvements, and about 6 weeks for all of them to be back to full health. I finally removed the extra carbon after the 6th week, and they've all been fine since.

Sadly, I did lose several fish when this happened, but I managed to save most of them.

Sorry to hear about your fish.

If it were me, the first thing is water quality and large water changes, daily if you can until you come up with a better idea. This is not just to keep the water quality but to potentially reduce the amount of whatever triggered this. It could be toxins, it could be parasites. I know parasites like trichodina can cause cloudy eyes, blindness and death. The trigger is bad water quality as trichodina exists in tanks without issues. The cure for trichodina is praziquantel. The paraguard you're dosing is useless in most cases as it treats external parasites where most parasite issues are internal.

I'd try praziquantel, after thoroughly removing any other meds from the tank. Praziquantel needs to be in the water for 2 weeks at the recommended dose....if you decide to go that route.