Loaches Online Forum

Hello everyone apologies for adding another help me post but I am a little concerned.

Okay what's the problem? My Clowns and a couple of my zebra Loach are flicking I believe that's the correct terminology? basically they will be swimming around then all of a sudden they will go on there side and and rub there flank/side along the sand its a very quick process unfortunately it is becoming more common.

Other factors: No white spots! which maybe good it maybe bad? There still greedy eating machines which is good. There all very active in fact for the flicking there behaviours have not changed in anyway, there is no visual change in them like reddening of the gills or anus there is no mucus film on them.

They get fed a large variety of food over the week of course there is flake food plus vedge flake food, then there is Hikari sinking wafers, crab cuisine, Algae wafers, micro wafers mini pellets and food sticks. I have 3 or 4 other sinking wafers, Plus they get cucumber, prawns, muscles the odd bit of chicken plus once a week garden peas well thats there main diet.

The Tank: Its new well about a month old Juwel vision 450 with the internal filter taken out I have hooked up my old fluval 405 and a brand new Tetra Tec 1200 the heater is set to run the tank temp to about 26 to 27 degrees Also in there is a Korillia 3 power head, Sand substrate (Argos cleaned very well) with a range of live plants I also have some mature Bog wood and African jade rocks in there to. The mature media from my Juwel Trigon 350 filter went into the new tetra tec well some of it and of course the fluval 405 was already established for about 18 months.

Stocking:

9 clown loach ranging from 1.5 to 3.5
6 Zebra Loach
8 Kuhli Loach
6 dwarf rainbow
3 red rainbow
2 Bosemani Rainbow
8 Panda Cory
9 Cardinal Tetra

Water condition: PH 7.5 Ammonia 0.0 Nitrite 0.0 Nitrate 10
The tank had a 40 % water change today with a general clean up I use Sea chem prime as a conditioner. I do a 40% water change weekly and in between that I do a Mini water change of about 20% just to suck up any junk.

I am aware of the size of adult Clowns and there tank requirements I hope to have them in a nice 8ft tank next year but for now being so small they seem to be getting on okay in there current tank.

So has anyone got any idea why my Clowns and zebras are flicking?


Thanking you sincerely and kindly in advance

Regards onebto

That is called flashing.
Basically fish do this when there is some sort of skin irritation.
I cannot see anything from your post though, that might diagnose the problem.
Water conditions look good. (wrong pH, ammonia and salt are the 3 more common water problems that might make some fish itch)

Fish can also flash when their gills itch. You cannot see into the gills very well to see if there is a problem, unless the fish are holding their gills open a lot. There are parasites (including Ich) and diseases that might irritate the gills.

At this point I do not know what to suggest.
You might look here for gill problems, and see if you can see anything that looks like one of these issues.
http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/fish_d ... rders.html
and look around at that site for skin problems, too.

Some Cichlids will claim territory by flashing, but I do not think Loaches do this.

Thanks for your response the link and advise.

Gave the tank another 50% water change thinking it cannot hurt.

Regards onebto.

Many thanks for your advice, link, and response.

In the belief that it couldn't hurt, I gave the tank another 50% water change.

Thank you, onebto. wordle today