A different clown loach illness -- help?

[mikev]

This one is beyond me; I only hope that someone has seen this before.

There are no physical symptomes; the affected clown is the smallest of four at about 2.5". It is not clear if he is underweight; I *think* he is about the norm for the size. Stable tank; I had him from September.

Now, the problem: I don't think he is eating. I've noticed yesterday, but he might have been deceiving me for a while: he comes out to get flakes together with the rest, and goes through the motions, but I don't see him actually eating anything: 3 feedings in a row observed. And other clowns seem to reject him a bit today -- this is a particularly bad sign IME, somehow they know.

Additional relevant info: I had all the fish in the tank on UltraCarePX for a week and discontinued Wed morning. Cause: yes, the WastingDisease, or specifically a tapeworm infection in a different loach, came with the fish and unfortunately discovered only much later --- no symptomes, only the growth rate was off, and this takes some time -- and probably more experience than i have -- to see. Given that to the best of my knowledge tapeworms do not reproduce in a tank, I went with internal meds (and UltraCarePX is supposed to be effective against specifically tapeworms)

So one possibility is that the poor fellow has a blockage due to a dead tapeworm; or that UltraCarePX did not do its job and I just noticed, or it can be something else. No point in posting images, there is nothing to see.

(Just in case: nothing unusual about his anus --- but with a tapeworm it would not show).

If anyone could recommend a course of actions, I'll greatly appreciate it.


If the answer happens to be Levamitosol, any additional info/links you could give on where in the US one would find a liquid form of it and how to apply it (can I avoid treating the entire tank?)

TIA for any help, unf. this situation is beyond what I've encoutered in the past.

[mikev]

Hate to beg, but is there any hope for help?

I simply never dealt with the internal parasites before, and I am lost as to the strategy. And the problem meanwhile doubled: I've examined carefully the other tank here (to evacuate some fish to, if I have to), and found a similar problem there as well, even if there is no possibility of me cross-contiminating the tanks.

The other problem is a young yoyo acquired about 3 weeks ago. I got four small ones, <1", two showed rapid growth, one grew some, and one does look like a "Wasting Disease" case: no growth, skinny, and only limited interest to food. (and I was observing their feedings carefully enough before...somehow did not notice or it got worse just now.)

It goes beyond probabilities to hit the same thing twice in different tanks at the same time, but it did apparently happen.

(One available option: I can put the other tank on UltraCurePX right away, not that I'm confident it will do any good.)

Any suggestions, plz?

[qumqats]

I'm in a similar boat. I have three 2" clowns in a Qtank and two of them have plumped up quite nicely and grown in size a bit. Yet the third one doesn't appear to have grown ANY and is pretty thin.

I've concluded that he has 'skinny disease' aka 'wasting disease'. I've started the tank on a treatment of maracyn/maracyn2 in case the cause is bacterial. Once that is done if the little guy hasn't improved I'll do a treatment of Levamitosol on the basis of the cause being parasites. The best source of this seems to be a pig dewormer from a feed store. http://aquaweb.pair.com/forums/archives ... view=96198

It appears that there is disagreement as to the cause of 'skinny disease'. Some claim bacteria, others parasites. This is the reason for my mention of two completely different treatments.

[mikev]

Thank you for replying, perhaps we can share the experience and save some fish this way.

Let me try to add a bit to the "knowledge pool":

It appears that there is disagreement as to the cause of 'skinny disease'.

This part is very simple. There is no such thing as "skinny disease", it is a symptome, not a disease. Saying that a loach has a "skinny disease" is equivalent to saying that its owner has a "high fever". The real disease may be a bacteria or, more often, a worm/worms.

Here is the 1st part of my experience that I've omitted above:

I got four polka-dots in the fall, all at 1" (just like my yoyo's now). After three months, they became approximately 1", 1.3", 1.8" and 2". Since they all look alike and don't shoal together much, it took me a while to notice. I suspected that there was something wrong with the smallest one, moved him to a small tank to feed better (he did not compete for food) and observe.

I was going to go your route (antibiotics first), but he died first. We did an autopsy on him, which revealed no blood (?!) and a single tapeworm. (and if your loach passes away, it may be a good idea to see what killed it).

Given the timing I'm certain that the tapeworm came with the fish and it is likely that the second small polkadot has it too. So I put the entire tank on UltraCarePX which is supposed to be safe and take care of tapeworms (same components as used for treating animals, but not levimisatol).

During the treatment several other fishes had appetite problems for 1-2 feedings, but they all fixed themselves (I was watching for this...any drug that kills worms may cause a digestive system blockage and kill the fish this way.. this is why I went with UltraCare and not levamisatole right away ).

What is happening with my small clown right now I totally don't understand....

.....

Best of luck with your clown, and thanks for the link.

[Mark in Vancouver]

Ask your local aquarium shop if they have any medication products that contain Levamisole. I used a product called DiscoMed, but it has apparently been discontinued and these things are not necessarily available in any given region.

We have also heard that combined treatment with Maracyn 1 and 2 (simultaneously) can help with the skinny symptoms you're seeing.

Also, try feeding thawed, drained bloodworms in small amounts to see if you can coax them to eat.

[mikev]

Mark,

Thanks a lot, plz see below.

Ask your local aquarium shop if they have any medication products that contain Levamisole. I used a product called DiscoMed, but it has apparently been discontinued and these things are not necessarily available in any given region.

Was doing this for two weeks without any luck (NY has a lot of shops and I felt that having this med on hand was a good idea).

We have also heard that combined treatment with Maracyn 1 and 2 (simultaneously) can help with the skinny symptoms you're seeing.

I'll keep this in mind. My sense right now is that since this is worm-related (or medicine poisoning?), Maracyns will not do any good.

Also, try feeding thawed, drained bloodworms in small amounts to see if you can coax them to eat.

Wow. Why did not I think of this! Had to dump a lot since the more active fish (Danios and Polka-Dots) was pushing Clowns away, but he certainly ate two of these and then a few of dry bloodworms. He has been searching the ground for more for a few minutes now.

I still don't understand what is next....(and what is the real cause)....let me see what happens in the next feeding, but at least I don't think that he is going to die today.

Thanks!

[mikev]

OK, the current situation is about the same: he will go for worms, he will mostly ignore the flakes, and he still seems weak.

I probably should not try anything else for a couple of days (?), any suggestions on what to do if nothing changes?

[mikev]

OK, maybe someone has a suggestion.

The situation did not change. The clown will not take anything but bloodworms (frozen or dried), full rejection of flakes and various pellets.

It is nearly impossible to get bloodworms to him, other fish likes them too and is much faster. So he gets perhaps 5 worms a day.

The obvious idea to feed everyone flakes and then drop bloodworms does not work either: the others get full, to the point of no interest in flakes, but still somehow find the room for bloodworms....

This makes me wonder if a clown can be smart enough to remember that the other food made him feel ill before (I spiked everything else with the anti-parasite med, but not bloodworms, but this was several days ago). If this is the case, just how is he going to remember?

Yuck.

[mikev]

This is just to close this thread, in case someone cares.

He is back to normal today: takes flakes.

For the last few days he was totally crazy but consistent about the food preferences: full rejection of flakes and pellets and at the same time hysterical reaction to bloodworms: he was even taking worms from the surface (never saw clowns doing this before) and was pushing danios (bigger than him) aside. Tried to chase a danio too....

No more worms for him (and this tank) for a few days...