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Help for a sick yoyo loach!

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:32 am
by i_love_yoyos
Hi,

I was wondering if you could help me out...I bought two yoyo loaches from my LFS about six weeks ago, and for about 3 weeks the guy in the photo has been swimming up with his mouth open. He can swim normally to (if I look at him enough to make him move, or the other yoyo chases him) but generally he stays like this, or rests on the ground under a rock. Today he started tilting side ways a bit to, while floating up! (not gasping at the surface though).

I thought I saw some white spots on him, and thought maybe it was Ich, but I have done two 3 day treatments with a multicure (malachite green, methylene green, acriflavine), and although these seemed to help him and he became more active, now that I have stopped the treatment he is back to looking the same.

I have noticed that the ring around his mouth is getting redder (now it looks really red and swollen at the edges) and also that he is missing his barbels, so I am thinking maybe he had a fight with the other loach. I was also thinking maybe he has columnaris, as apparently there is a strain that doesn't kill fish straight away. The inside of his mouth does look white, but I can't really see any other columnaris type patches on his mouth or face so I am not sure. He also has this white bump on the right side of his nose ( not sure if you can see it in the photo).

I thought I saw some red worms coming out of him once to, but haven't seen them again so maybe i imagined it! I also thought I saw a lot of white dots on top of the water, and thought maybe it was a parasite thing, but could have imagined that to. His gills are also tinted a bit red, and he has pinky marks where his fins join his body as well if that means anything?

The other loach has grown alot and looks quite fat now, but this one hasn't been able to eat that much, and now sometimes he just stops swimming as he is getting tired. I think tomorrow I am going to try and find a quarantine tank for him. I did poke some food to him (when he was more active during the multi cure treatment), and he did look interested and had ago, but not sure if he ate it or spat it out.

My tank is a 4ft with 165L, and it currently has 5 neons, 5 emperor tetras, 2 yoyo loaches and lots of plants. All seems fine bar the loach! I completely re- did the tank so it is about 2 months old, but kept everything in the filter and alot of water from my old tank which was years old. Temp is 28 degrees, and the pH is 7.2- 7.4. I also did all the water tested at the LFS, and they said everything was fine :)

Before the loach started swimming up with his mouth open, I thought he was a bit lethargic, and skinny and bloated at the same time. I started adding some minerals to increase the hardness of the water (recommended by LFS to help plants), and I also completely washed the filter and sponges ( prob not a good idea!) before he got sick. Do you think these factors have anything to do with it?

Any help would be much appreciated! It has been terrible looking at him so sick for three weeks!

Check out the photos here:
http://s292.photobucket.com/user/njlalala/library/

Sorry it is so long, thanks for reading!