What are these sores on my hill stream loach and what do I do about it

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el_miguel_
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:54 am

What are these sores on my hill stream loach and what do I do about it

Post by el_miguel_ » Sat Jun 20, 2020 12:27 pm

Image Sorry for the quality, I know a cliche at this point, lighting made it really hard to get a good pic. (please let me know if the image did not work, but the link is: https://imgur.com/gallery/hyouHKh.)

Symptoms:
I noticed some sores on the belly of one of my hillstream loaches (spotted). Lets just say that my google searches have only worried me more and I want to get an opinion from the community. So far this is the only loach I have seen with any kind of sore in my tank. I think I technically saw one sore a long time ago but thought it was just a minor injury that needed time to heal, it didnt look that bad. I hadnt really noticed it since because this particular loach has always been shy and doesnt really like to hang out on the glass. I have her (?) in separated in a floating breeder tank for observation, she was unbelievably easy to catch today, almost concerningly so (she wasnt just sitting still but she wasnt putting in that hillstream-loach effort into evading capture).

Tank info:
~My tank is a year old, 30gal, temp between 70 and 73, airstone and surface agitation with plenty of filtration (cascade 1000)
~Parameters are 0, 0, ~20 nitrates.
~I have 6 hillstream loaches (2 spotted, 4 ringed), and 15 rosy loaches. I have an uncounted number of rili shrimp, an uncounted number of young ramshorns, and an uncounted number of assassin snails.


Decor:
~Rocks:
~~~A number of very smooth stones,
~~~one stone that is not the smoothest but also not too rough (to put in context, at most the coarseness of medium grade sand paper). Note, everyone in my tank hangs out on this rock so id expect the sores to be on everyone if it was the problem.
~~~substrate is a combination of fine sand and semi-rounded gravel (not even close to sharp).

~Wood:
~~~A few pieces of driftwood and some thick bark.

~Plants:
~~~Giant hairgrass, moss, glosso, Elodea, hornwort.


What is it, and what do I do?

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FishyLady
Posts: 519
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:46 pm
Location: Hay on Wye, Hereford

Re: What are these sores on my hill stream loach and what do I do about it

Post by FishyLady » Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:28 pm

Have you tried Melafix? don't like using chemicals but it's the only one I have. perhaps directing extra strong flowing jet of water just at her?
so her belly is being 'showered' all the time? sorry I cant think of anything else, I have never managed to keep these they seem to be extra delicate. good luck, keep us posted at condition of belly.

Val
Better the chaos of creativity than the tidiness of idleness.

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