Loaches Online Forum

Fish flashing from parasites/desease looks more like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-qsUGr_l98

That's what my platies were doing.

Dragging one's side over the substrate is more like the fish rubbing itself. That's what my clowns have done at times. And each time I've seen it, I've been worried. But it's proved to be nothing at all. The corys are the other ones that do it, so I'd presume it's confined to bottom feeders.
My mid water fish never rub themselves or flash, not a usual behaviour so if I see them, then something is wrong.
I think it all comes down to what's normal and what not for the species. If you've had your loaches for 5 years and they've always done that, then there's nothing to worry about. If it's only a recent encounter, then maybe it's a worrying sign. at least that's how I would think. And also, clown loaches copy each other too, so if one does something, the other may just as well try it out...

Any disease would show up by the first year you have the fish. The longest incubation period I've read about, and it's rather an exception, is micobacteria/TB, the second longest is camallanus worms, and that's around 3 months from the fish being infected. But other worms, nematodes, flukes, and such will show up signs pretty soon. This could be in the form of secondary signs like eroded barbels, skinny belly, flicking, emaciation, etc.. but more than one fish will have it, and it will affect different species, as they are infectious.

Bacterial infections are mostly pathogenic, due to environmental stress and weakened immune system, rather than buying an infected fish. They develop pretty fast and obviously kill the "host" unlike worms, so one can't miss having a sick fish and sometimes/most times they affect just one species of fish only in the tank and none of the others.

These are my thoughts from reading, I wouldn't take my words for granted but it's generally what I've read and experienced.

Another thing I noticed my small clown does, he pops bubbles on the surface, quite loud so. It's not like gasping on the surface, but more like playful behaviour....... Have you seen that because it's the first time I've seen it? Maybe it's oxygen issues, but I know my platies go the surface the moment the oxygen is bad and they are swimming happily around, a bit like on steroids though because of the heat.

Yes, my small one do it as well. Often upside down, seeming to knibble on the surface, or on the algea just above the water on the glass. But it also seem like exploring the surface. The small ones do it now, the medium ones did it too when small, but not anymore. Nothing to see there, they found out.

i wrote about the flashing thing, because of the many questions that were asked. Mostly about yoyos.
Yes, you are right. Mine have always done it. The first 5, and the newer 2 aswell. It MUST be a ritual thing but It causes a lot of concern, hence my idea to share more info on the subject.
experiend keepers know about it, yet the less experienced are left thinking their fish will die. Google flashing loaches, and you have your worst fishy nightmare served right up.

sorry, low batterie, so quickly posted. different computer now.
i wanted to say:
a topic showing the difference between loachy behavioural flashing, and itchy flashing, would probably be helpful.
preventing unnessasary treatment to healthy fish, and giving helpful visual material to compare to for when a fish is ill. this would save time to get the fish treated quicker, or put owners at ease.

just like the video you shared showed a surely itchy barb, (because of dirty water with a bacterial mist maybe?) scratching itself on random places throughout the tank.
loaches, especially yoyos, move much faster though when itchy, and the barb's speed when just playing or marking spots. the clowns a little slower. in my tank that is.

please don't get me wrong, i wouldn't dare to say that all is right in a strangers tank, or make a statement to anyone personally. i too think that caution is an absolute must in a closed system like an aquarium.
i too let all those bad cases get to me, so i have two (soon three) uv-c lights in one tank and spares on hand, teststrips to last a few years, a fridge filled with aquarium aiding liquids, spare pumps, spare impellers for the cannisters, and a very complicated returnsystem that looks like dr. frankenstein invented it, all just in case. i must be overconcerned too

To be honest, I hadn't bought a new fish in ages, so I wasn't worried about diseases, and thus, I wasn't "trying to notice" things.

These days, that I've been looking for things, I started "seeing" things

I can't find much info about flashing loaches. Do you have any link handy so I can read?

As I said, I've seen mine over the years flash, quite a few times. Each time I think it's either bad water quality, I overfed, they got a disease out of the blue, etc...

I am so bad and panic over possible diseases so easily but I've thought myself to wait, wait, wait and observe...don't ever rush...

One time I thought my fish have columnaris...because I saw about 3 platies with white mouths, like cotton wool, that was happening in the loach tank. I panicked, I started reading like a lunatic, checking meds online, etc...Well next day I look, no platies with white mouths, none. Mmm, that's odd...I keep looking
Two days later, I see platies with white mouths again, damn...panic attack....And then I see cory eggs left overs all over the glass And my pleco with two eggs stuck on his nose You can figure out why my platies had/have "cotton wool" mouths every so often

Loachloach wrote:To be honest, I hadn't bought a new fish in ages, so I wasn't worried about diseases, and thus, I wasn't "trying to notice" things.

These days, that I've been looking for things, I started "seeing" things

why do you think i am making a point out of all this?

Loachloach wrote:I can't find much info about flashing loaches. Do you have any link handy so I can read?

no, that's the whole point here.
i searched this forum, on the word flashing. all i found were threads with people yelling HELP!!!! my fishy scratched itself. ofcourse, i didn't read everything, just a few at random. it bothers me a little that in all that talk, i found one, just 1, reply saying that it could be behaviour, observe first. many threads just skip to how to medicate, because "a flash IS ich".
in many cases, i am sure there was illness, and in many others nothing wrong.
for example, had i applied all the well ment advice from the treads, my fish tank would now be green, orange and purple from the medication for a slightly pale, new big clown that flashes sometimes. luckily, in this case there were people saying it will most likely come around, but KEEP WATCHING IT.

Loachloach wrote:As I said, I've seen mine over the years flash, quite a few times. Each time I think it's either bad water quality, I overfed, they got a disease out of the blue, etc...

and how often was there something wrong? you have experience in this that could be helpful.

Loachloach wrote: One time I thought my fish have columnaris...because I saw about 3 platies with white mouths, like cotton wool, that was happening in the loach tank. I panicked, I started reading like a lunatic, checking meds online, etc...Well next day I look, no platies with white mouths, none. Mmm, that's odd...I keep looking
Two days later, I see platies with white mouths again, damn...panic attack....And then I see cory eggs left overs all over the glass And my pleco with two eggs stuck on his nose You can figure out why my platies had/have "cotton wool" mouths every so often

i thought the pims i adopted were sick because of an abnormal swollen belly . found out it's normal they just eat a lot at once and algea wafers fit in their mouth in one piece.

and how often was there something wrong? you have experience in this that could be helpful.

None at all, with none of the fish in the tank, not just the loaches. They've all been very healthy really from what I can tell and obviously all still alive. My corys and pleco have passed 5 years of age. I got them together. The clowns are younger, just 3 maybe.

When I bought my first 5 clowns, it was my partner that actually begged me get them. We went to the shop for me to buy fish food and it was "please, please, please", get the clown loaches. All I knew about them was that they grow big..... I didn't personally like them at all, not one bit. I hated them for the first 3 months I brought them home, as I watched them fly like rockets chasing all fish, terrorise my corydoras during feeding time, stealing all food, eat all cory eggs during spawning, and suck baby corys through the breeder trap holes at the bottom, make salad out of my plants and evict my pleco from his cave who got very nervous because of that for a period of time. Eventually, that behaviour somehow became appealing And now I love them. But they are not half as bad and have lost all that sort of "aggressiveness". All they do now is a "loach dance" all day long, eat and sleep. They don't bother other fish anymore.

Anyway, my point is that I had no idea they are very susceptible to ich. So when I got them, I didn't get ich But I may have been lucky, who knows. I was lucky twice. Now third time, maybe not so lucky or just overreacting.

Hahahahahaha. Tricked twice. And your new one WILL (already does) do al that too. Good story though. Are they still murdering baby fish? See the potential?

Same thing happend to me with the denisoni barbs. Small firetetras, pondsnails and cherryshrimp cycled the then new tank. Must have been 3 to 500 shrimps in there. None left a month after the barbs were in. They were, and still are, by far the fastest fish, and stole ALL the food, starving other fish. I hated them, almost sold them to a kid with an 80 cm tank! Wild caught miss keralas! How stupid would that have been! Years later they calmed down. Much nicer fish now. Gracefull even. And for laughs, they steal food from the clowns mouths. Now that's some proper payback .

i watched the video you posted again. Have you read the comments? See what i mean?

Are they still murdering baby fish? See the potential?

Nope, not at all fortunately or unfortunately. I've been watching tiny platy fry of about 1cm passing by the loaches as if they don't exist. It's the adult platies that chase fry non stop but I am sure the clowns must be snacking on newborns at least. Or I hope so. I've got one male platy left and he's immortal... He's very old, 4 years plus and going strong. But for some reason 99.99% of all surviving fry have been females. I haven't seen a male in ages. There was one I remember seeing and I think the old male platy killed him as he kept chasing him away from his harem. But even the fry I kept in my fry tank separately all turned out females....I am derailing...again...

i watched the video you posted again. Have you read the comments? See what i mean?

You mean the video with the "ichy" clown loach

Years later they calmed down

Yes, like all animals fish do seem to calm down with age too.

But you should see now with the high temp what my platy fry and the loach are doing. It's like I am watching on fast forward They look like they are going to live their life cycle in a week, makes me dizzy watching them

Loachloach wrote:

i watched the video you posted again. Have you read the comments? See what i mean?

You mean the video with the "ichy" clown loach

it was nice to see your fishies acting healthy, didnt see the comments though.
But no, i ment the comments on the scratching barbs video in the bacterial mist tank: What medication should i randomly dump in? Is this ich?
A great example of the "jumping to conclusions issue" i mentioned before.

But no, i ment the comments on the scratching barbs video in the bacterial mist tank

Oh, yes, sorry. I did read them. Yes, jumping to conclusions doesn't help.
It would be interesting if people kept statistics of when having a sick fish, symptoms, treatment method, outcome and pile all that info together
My guess would be 95% failure rate treating diseases by the average hobbyist without an access to a lab, regardless of the amount of meds and forum advice out there. And it's mostly because 95% of the aquarium diseases are due to water quality and improper techniques keeping fish.
I am not an exclusion unfortunately. But I've improved tremendously by just keeping them healthy rather than trying to treat the consequences.

I too think keeping them healthy is the most important.

guess who was out and exploring in full daylight today? Yes, the new big one . She swam in the open and even sat on the sand for a minute.
She still doesnt trust me though. While she does make eyecontact and stays where she is, she does get ready to run, and tracks my every move. Or she turns around, faceing away. What i dont see isnt there .
She dug an extra entrance to her cave, and has a pied-a-terre with one of the pims. Thankfully, no loach tries to fight those, the results would be ugly. And she now follows the clownboss around. No fear of her anymore.

The small ones are doing great too. They dont really seem to notice the larger ones yet though. 3 only play amongst eachother. 1 is a bit of a loner, but he does look at other fish and his owner. Quite a carracter, seeming to tempt the skunks on purpose and then running of when the skunks get angry. He does it a few times in a row and a few days in a row.
I will take a few photos when given the oppertunity.

I am glad she's doing well, and the babies too.

Looking forward to the pictures.

... So i did a 1/4 wc yesterday, cleaned the other cannister's prefilters and its intake thing. No food. Sat around with the camera ready... the residents were jumpy... the big one came out... flashed its sittingrock twice... sat on it...and that was it No "flashdancing" or any other display.
Later on she did play the pushy game all my botia do (strength testing?) with one of the boes males. Interesting to watch, but extremely unfair. The boes male is 11 or 12 cm. Half her length. He was ac tually pushed upside down with just one pec fin.

while she is a little more tolerant of me, the camera was one step too far. Only have some far away shots of the big one. But i ended up with some nice pictures of the others. I'll put them on later.

The small ones are still doing good. The one who picks all the fights has a "hickey" though, exactly the size of a babyclowns mouth. Serves him right . It's healing well. Got a foto of that as well.

today is the kings birthday, parties everywhere, but i have been sick at home . took many photos to break boredum.
so not all photos are good, but some failed ones show funny effects.



some came out perfect, i love these "actionshots", i just hope photobucket kept quality.


i love photobucket
has anyone seen their clowns sideline sensory organs? what is the English name? see it?


she has some battlescars too. let me clarify:


some cuddly pics:



here is the big girl:

and the small ones:


the bitemark:

Really nice pics and lovely clowns.

I love the third picture on the list with the clown loach. Priceless!

Everyone is looking great. Well done!

Do the new juvies keep to themselves or do they mix with the larger ones yet?