A funny Clown

[Azzuron]

Hey yall, I setup a 20 gallon tank a few months ago and have a nice assortment of fish including 2 clown loaches. I had an outbreak of ick shortly after bringing the two of them home, and they got a good case of it. Both have recovered from it, and survived. One is perfectly normal, but shortly after this event i noticed once seems to have a strange defect. I cannot recall if it was there when i bought him or not. The area between where his eyes are, and his dorsal fin are "caved" in almost, where the other loach is very solid and round. I don't believe its due to lack of food, if anything i tend to over feed my fish a bit. Is this what they call skinny disease? I cannot find photo's of it, so i don't know what it looks like. hes been fine for the most part, hes not as active as my other loach is, but hes getting around and does stuff. Is he just an odd ball, or is something wrong?

[Diana]

Does the caved in appearance follow the back of the fish, horizontally along, below the dorsal fin and perhaps fade out on the back half?
Or is it more like an indented area just between the head and dorsal fin, as if the fish has a neck?

[Azzuron]

It is just between the head and the dorsal fin.

[bslindgren]

There's a picture in the Loaches book. What do you feed them? Sometimes they don't eat well. I have successfully used frozen brine shrimp to plump them up and get them going. The fish in my avatar was wasting away until I started feeding brine shrimp. That worked great. If that doesn't work, then it's probably skinny disease, which isn't good. I lost one a while back in spite of medicating etc.

I hope you realize that clowns will outgrow your tank rather quickly, and you should try to have more than just the two. Five or more is recommended, and eventually a 6 foot tank since they get rather large.

[Azzuron]

Well i try to learn a bit about the fish i get especially if they are much different than the typical fish you get. I have yet to read anything that recommended 5. In fact anyone i have ever talked to has said 2 or more is fine. I guess i am getting bad information. at any rate, the tank is temporary, they will be moved to a nice large tank later on. They both eat pretty decently, i have been using the algae waffers. I watch them both eat off it. If i go the brine shrimp route should i separate him out for a while? Also do other types of loaches like the yoyo, Burmese border, etc school up with clowns and each other? It would be nice to have some variety if ill be getting more.