New to Loach keeping - Weather loaches dying in Quarantine?
Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 8:49 am
Hi guys
I was wondering if anyone had any advice on this?
I keep fancy goldfish and recently purchased two small golden weather loaches to put in my tank. They have spent the last three weeks in quarantine with
a pear-scale goldfish and were due to be transferred to the main tank this week. Everything was going fine until one developed an illness and died in the past two days. The
remaining loach now appears to be showing the same symptoms (it took about three or four days for the first loach to die after exhibiting these behaviours). The goldfish
seems completely unaffected.
I have all three fish in a 50 Litre uncycled tank with an air stone and several hiding places. I had been treating the tank with Aqua-Prazi as a preventative until earlier this week
and performing regular water changes - 50 % every few days - to avoid ammonia/nitrite build-up (as it is an uncycled quarantine).
The water was being conditioned using seachem prime and I was feeding de-shelled peas and bloodworm - I also dropped in sinking catfish pellets periodically (into small crevices
were the goldfish couldn't eat them up).
Earlier this week the larger loach started exhibiting odd behaviours - lying on its side a little, bobbing its head up and down, keeping its mouth wide open etc. This developed
over the course of a few days to it swimming fitfully, losing its balance and sometimes lying on its back. It died a day or two ago.
Here is a video of it bobbing its head up and down and kind of 'lurching' or 'arching its back' a day or two before it died:
http://youtu.be/8IvVxIcQVTI
I was certain that it was dead on Saturday but when I tried to lift it out it seemed to have a little life left in it, I left it until yesterday to remove it as they are funny creatures and their behaviour is a little hard for me to decipher at times.
I checked the water parms yesterday and they seemed normal - Ph 7.5, 20 ppm Nitrate, 0 Nitrite, 0.6 ppm Ammonia - which could be attributed to my leaving a dead loach a little too long
in the tank.
In the past day or two the remaining loach has started exhibiting the same behaviours - sluggishness, lurching movements, constantly bobbing its head up and down, and occasionally losing its balance and lying on its back. Here is a video from this morning(you'll see him flop around and lie in his back at around 0:52)
http://youtu.be/7CvCPtvyRZ0
I haven't salted the tank and I am reluctant to put in anything else as I have no idea what's going on with these fish. There was also no warning on the Prazi about loaches and I am
concerned about this being a factor?
I was just curious to know if anybody has ever seen anything like this? And if there is anything that can be done?
I was looking forward to keeping these fish for a long time but losing one and potentially both in quarantine is pretty heartbreaking.
Thanks
I was wondering if anyone had any advice on this?
I keep fancy goldfish and recently purchased two small golden weather loaches to put in my tank. They have spent the last three weeks in quarantine with
a pear-scale goldfish and were due to be transferred to the main tank this week. Everything was going fine until one developed an illness and died in the past two days. The
remaining loach now appears to be showing the same symptoms (it took about three or four days for the first loach to die after exhibiting these behaviours). The goldfish
seems completely unaffected.
I have all three fish in a 50 Litre uncycled tank with an air stone and several hiding places. I had been treating the tank with Aqua-Prazi as a preventative until earlier this week
and performing regular water changes - 50 % every few days - to avoid ammonia/nitrite build-up (as it is an uncycled quarantine).
The water was being conditioned using seachem prime and I was feeding de-shelled peas and bloodworm - I also dropped in sinking catfish pellets periodically (into small crevices
were the goldfish couldn't eat them up).
Earlier this week the larger loach started exhibiting odd behaviours - lying on its side a little, bobbing its head up and down, keeping its mouth wide open etc. This developed
over the course of a few days to it swimming fitfully, losing its balance and sometimes lying on its back. It died a day or two ago.
Here is a video of it bobbing its head up and down and kind of 'lurching' or 'arching its back' a day or two before it died:
http://youtu.be/8IvVxIcQVTI
I was certain that it was dead on Saturday but when I tried to lift it out it seemed to have a little life left in it, I left it until yesterday to remove it as they are funny creatures and their behaviour is a little hard for me to decipher at times.
I checked the water parms yesterday and they seemed normal - Ph 7.5, 20 ppm Nitrate, 0 Nitrite, 0.6 ppm Ammonia - which could be attributed to my leaving a dead loach a little too long
in the tank.
In the past day or two the remaining loach has started exhibiting the same behaviours - sluggishness, lurching movements, constantly bobbing its head up and down, and occasionally losing its balance and lying on its back. Here is a video from this morning(you'll see him flop around and lie in his back at around 0:52)
http://youtu.be/7CvCPtvyRZ0
I haven't salted the tank and I am reluctant to put in anything else as I have no idea what's going on with these fish. There was also no warning on the Prazi about loaches and I am
concerned about this being a factor?
I was just curious to know if anybody has ever seen anything like this? And if there is anything that can be done?
I was looking forward to keeping these fish for a long time but losing one and potentially both in quarantine is pretty heartbreaking.
Thanks