Loaches Online Forum

My LFS has clowns for the amazing price (around here at least) of 3/$7.50. The only catch is that they are small @ ~1.25". I know smaller loaches are prone to things like skinny disease and want to do my best to insure their good health and happiness. I've been reading about levamisole hydrochloride and I'll be looking for it in my area (San Antonio, TX, USA) soon. What other treatments would be recommended for treating them?

I plan on about 6 to start with and will be quarantining them in a 20 gal tank before adding them to my display.

Good price for anywhere, I think. If it were me, I'd want to just keep them 3 - 5 weeks in quarantine, and feed them well. I don't think I'd treat them with anything unless some health issues arose. Ask your vet about levamisole. It may be available in unexpected forms for other animals.

But focus on keeping the water clean and watching for any weird changes. Obviously, if you can avoid treating the little buggers with anything, it's for the best.

Good luck!

Clowns at that size need really intensive feeding throughout the day, which is one of the reasons I think they are unsuitable for importing at such a small size (the average hobbyist could find this very difficult/problematic within the confines of an average sized tank). However, we've been hearing of quite an influx of tiny sized clowns lately here. Be sure to give them lots of appropriately sized tiny foods - a mix of (defrosted) frozen cyclops, baby brineshrimp & daphnia will all help the fish to gain weight and grow well. Alternate this with micropellets/microgranules (and powdered baby fish foods if they are really small). Then you can move them on to bigger stuff as they grow. You'll want to feed them every few hours, so very regular water changing and testing will be needed.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Emma

@Mark in Vancouver: I would prefer to not treat them, but I really don't like it when my fish die, so I like to be prepared. 3-5 weeks seems like a long time, but I suppose it really isn't.

@Emma: I figured I'd have to feed them quite a bit, but I didn't think it would have to be so frequent. Normally I wouldn't even consider buying a clown under 2", but the price is almost too good to pass up. I'll probably start a new thread once I get the first batch.

Thanks again!

Edit: looks like I'll have to wait until I get back from Hawaii before I get a chance to get my clowns. Oh that I could have my cake and eat it too.

I have bought young clowns and have found that preventive treatment is better than waiting for symptoms to show up. By the time the babies are showing that they are sick they are so close to dead it is almost impossible to save them.
If you treat them while they are still strong they can withstand the stress of treatment better, and likely have a smaller load of parasites to get rid of.

When I got 25 baby clowns about 3 years ago I treated them for parasites while they were in quarantine. 100% survived the prophylactic treatment.

In all my previous small clown loach purchases before this I’d have significant loses and not necessarily because of ich. Some loses were due to osmotic shock. My old LFS would sometimes salt their water, but I wasn’t aware of them doing this. A normal 30 minute acclimation process wasn’t nearly long enough to acclimate the clowns to my q-tank water. Most clowns that were in salted water at the LFS would die within 24 hours after hitting my salt-free water.

The only real way to avoid the acclimation/ osmotic shock deaths would have been with a 12-24 hour drip acclimation; or to salt the q-tank water to salt level in the fish bag. A TDS meter, a kH test, and gH test would be helpful in finding the salt level of the fish bag.

Nearly every loach that I’ve purchased that has survived acclimation has had a massive ich outbreak while in quarantine. I use to treat the fish after the 1st sign of ich, but now I’ll treat them regardless because IME ich is a given with any new fish purchase. Unfortunately, I’ve lost many loaches because of ich breakouts in and out of quarantine. There isn’t a trustworthy, parasite free, source of loaches in the USA that I know of.

I’m 100% behind prophylactic treatments for new fish in quarantine, especially clown loaches. Out of about 50, I've never lost a clown loach because of prophylactic treatments.

I did lose some clowns from skinny disease a few year ago, but that's another topic.

I know not to use Melaleuca based treatments with loaches, but what would you recommend using besides/in addition to levamisole hydrochloride?

I would alternate with an antibiotic if there is even a hint of skinny disease (Any other fish in the store tank that shows signs of it)

Which antibiotic?

One thing I didn't mention is that if there is something like ich in the main tank, then prophylactic treatments in quarantine are useless. Do you know with 100% certainty that there aren’t external parasites in the main tank already?

When was the last time the main tank was treated for external parasites? Has there been any new fish added since then?

I've never treated the main tank, nor have I ever noticed any sickness there. It probably wouldn't hurt to treat the entire tank though.

I went to the lfs that has the CLs to get a few and what do I find? Ick! 2 out of 3 tanks of clowns had ick. So, in stead of getting clowns I picked up a long handle net, a Koralia 3 and a Swordtail. Now I can get my Koralia 2 out of my SW tank, clean it and put it in with my Kubs!

Ich is the bread and butter of many fish stores. The fish bring you in, the ich brings you back.

There is probably only 1 loach shop I'd trust (Emma's), but it's a little more than 15 minutes away though.

I was surprised by this lfs. I had my QT and ick treatment ready for them, but the store manager really discouraged me from buying them. He said the ick isn't so bad, but clowns usually get a secondary infection/affliction that is usually more difficult to treat. I don't know how much scientific validity there is to that claim, but the fact that he didn't bag up "icky" fish gives me hope.

The secondary infection is bad, but the potential gill damage is even worse. You'll see gill infectied fish gasp at the surface for Oxygen. It's one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

At this stage the best thing you can do for the fish is to have just enough water in the tank to cover its body. You don't want the fish wasting energy trying to swim. A quarantine tank works best for this. Forgot to add that plenty of aeration helps also.