help

shane harripaulsingh · Post by **shane harripaulsingh** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:03 am

hi
i from trinidad and i m new to these fishes. i recently bought 2 clown loaches , beautifull fishes. one is about 3cm and the other is about 5cm .
a week has now passed without any problems , but this morning i noticed that the smaller one isn t his normal self. he is alot less active and is moving slowly around with his dorsal fin ( one on top) tucked in and his tail is also lookin drawn in. there is also a red tailed shark in the tank but he hasn t been harrashing them. should i be worried? treatment or water change?
thanks

avant · Post by **avant** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:29 am

Hi Shane, maybe you can share with us how long your tank has been setup and whether you notice any obvious diseases on the clown loach?

shari · Post by **shari** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:31 am

Hi Shane, and welcome to loaches on line.

What temperature is your tank? Sometimes planked fins can be an indication of temps too cool for the comfort of the fish.

Can you give us more info on the tank set up? Water parameters, size, other occupants, etc.

Also, sometimes keeping just 2 loaches in a tank will create a problem. They are very social fish and will establish a pecking order. The alpha loach will harrass the others to keep his exalted position.

Having only two means that he/she has only one other loach to address his attention to all the time. That could be part of the problem...

give us a description of their interactions as you've observed them, along with your tank set up and we can be of more help.

thanks

shane harripaulsingh · Post by **shane harripaulsingh** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:10 am

okay keep in mind that that i now starting out . its a 2 feet tank and i don t think temp is a prob , i live in the caribbean, the room temp is around 27' celcius. i planing on gettin a larger tank, 5ft by 2.5ft by 3ft, in 2 months . my goal right now is to learn how to take care of them and my main concern are illnesses and fights. the red tail was in my other tank ,yet again another 2ft tank , with my 2 balas sharks, when he started harashin them i got another tank and decided that i can also get 2 loaches as well. i was really waitin to get the bigger tank , but the tank had so much space and my fishes are still very small

the tank was set up a week and a half ago.
the smaller loach is basically just swimming around slowly and spending alot of the in his cave,(kinda normal 4 him). i haven t seen him eat since i noticed his fin this morning.
maybe i just tooo paranoid , but i spend alot of time lookin at my fishes and really like them.
really appreciate the responses
thanks alot

shari · Post by **shari** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 11:01 am

thanks for the info.

When you set up this new tank, did you use filter media or substrate from your existing tank? Is your other tank fully cycled? Meaning has it gone through the process of building up any beneficial bacteria that will help process the fish waste? If not, what your fish will experience is a build up of first ammonia, then nitrIte, then nitrAte and they will suffer and probably die.

Ammonia is poisonous to fish. Nitrite is highly toxic. Nitrate is tolerable. Beneficial bacteria will break down the nitrIte to nitrAte which can be controlled by water changes.

Here us a link describing the water cycle:

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

If you really like your fish, and I believe you do

then you need to understand this basic aspect of fishkeeping. Meanwhile, get a water test kit, test for ammonia and nitrites/nitrates. ANY ammonia in the tank will harm your fish. The ammonia reading should be 0. If you have ammonia in the tank, get some ammo-lock or other ammonia absorbing material, and do a water change immediately.

You may be able to save your fish, but you have to understand what is happening with your water, first.

Let us know what you find and we'll try to help.

shane harripaulsingh · Post by **shane harripaulsingh** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:17 pm

hi

so far i have done a partial water change, added a teaspoon of salt and exchanged the box filters .
i ll wait to see what happens then if needed make a trip to the pet store.
yhe red tailed shark and the other loach seems to be fine, the other loach,larger one, has a huge belly. he's been rushing all the food!

shari · Post by **shari** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:29 pm

What do you mean by 'exchanged the box filters'? Did you replace them with new, or did you put the one that's mature into the new tank?

andyroo · Post by **andyroo** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:01 pm

Shane,

Be careful to think the temp is properly controlled by the fact you're in the Caribbean. You're a little further south i know, but with temp. drops in Jan and Feb Ich (disease) is a major drama around here, particularly in clown loaches.

Andyroo

shane harripaulsingh · Post by **shane harripaulsingh** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:13 am

hi and thanks to all who took the the time to reply
by switching , i meant taking the older one and puttin it in the newer tank. i also decided to risk the other tank by takin out all the fish and movin them to the older tank. they seem fine now. however , the larger one's black strips have turn to very lite grey. i ve read that this happens with issues of dominance, but how come the smaller one, really smaller, has assumed the dominant role?

also can someone who has had a red tailed shark recommed a good tank mate. i ve realize that when i get a bigger tank , i may not want to chance my other fish. he's ok with the loaches but 2ft tank isn t suitable for them. the red tail is said to have a average growth of 6'(inches)

when i visited the pet store the owner told me that when i do water changes i should use tap(pipe) water instead of treated water. he said that ba little chlorine is good, it will neutralize the ammonia.
can someone verify this and use recommend a suitable amount of table salt to add to the aquarium.
laterz

fusQer · Post by **fusQer** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 5:17 am

red tailed black shark will not live with any other type of sharks, ie siamese algae eater, flying fox, roseline shark, etc.

i think your petstore guy wants your fish to die so you can come back and buy new ones

shari · Post by **shari** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:57 am

Shane,

Here's a description of the dangerous chemicals involved in keeping fish. (The first half of the page)

No, I wouldn't say that ammonia is neutralized by chlorine. What happens when you combine the two is that you get chloramine. Also deadly to fish, and harder to neutralize.

I'm not saying your fish store guy is deliberately giving bad advice, but ask him to show you how to do it with some of his fish...

http://www.vcnet.com/koi_net/finalnet.html

Martin Thoene · Post by **Martin Thoene** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:29 am

Hi Shane, the problem with RTBS is that they are so territorial that in a 2 foot tank they will never give any other fish any peace. They are beautiful fish and it might be OK in the large tank that you plan because it can stake out a territory and the other fish have somewhere to go that is not in that immedeate vicinity.

Martin.

shari · Post by **shari** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:41 am

As for the greying out you see in the larger fish, that means that he/she is declaring dominance, or planning to fight for it. The brighter colored one is the one being submissive, not the other way around. When you see two clowns struggling for dominance they will often both grey out and the loser will go back to his normal coloration before the winner.

shane harripaulsingh · Post by **shane harripaulsingh** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:01 pm

hi
they seem to be alright now and i have returned them to their own tank .
i bought and added some "start zyme" today.

really don t think the pet store owner was giving me bad advice but i ll c if i can get him to demonstate.

thanks to all for replying.

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