How would you treat this ill clown loach ?

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jake72

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( T TwoTankAmin I want to thank you for your assistance and posting the various links. That treatment is showing some effectiveness).
 
Apr 2, 2002
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How are your fish doing? Did they recover? Did you lose any more?
 

jake72

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How are your fish doing? Did they recover? Did you lose any more?
A 2nd one died. I expect a third one to die. #4 still has a chance to recover. #5 fully recovered and started to eat the other day; it is not eating everything in sight. #6 was never effected. One zebra died; no other fish is showing white dots; none have shown white dots for over a week but the loach tail rotted. I've added some anti-bacteria med but i suspect it is too late. Other than the one zebra which looked sickly for 10 days; no other fishes are showing symptons or have died. However, last week i had one angel that looked perfect one day and showed no external signs and the next day was dead. The anti bacteria med i added was based on the advice of someone else who said they had seen this disease before; it is a bit heavy handed. I have one little cardinal left (of a school of 16) who swims everywhere looking for his buddies.
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What a disaster. The thing that is most annoying is i don't know how to prevent it. Even if i had qt the cherry barbs for 2 months; it wouldn't have helped since they still show no symptons of any sort.
 
Apr 2, 2002
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The thing about ich is it comes in strains. Then there is the fact that some species are better at fight int than others. Finally, fish who have had it and recovered develop an immunity to it for some unknown length of time. This latter fact has ledt to work to develop an ich vaccine. I have not kept up with the literature as much as I once did, so I am not sure what the status of this is. I believe I have reference some success but cannot remember where.

As usual the relevant research is mostly being done relative to fish that are most heavily farmed for food.

Clowns and tetras are both very susceptible to ich. I have lost tetras to it but fortunately my clowns never got it.
 

jake72

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The 'dots' vanished weeks ago; it only lasted a few days. THe problem is something was rotting/eating the skin itself. The three that died had no tales left and other areas that showed signs of decay.
(a 3rd one died); the other questionable one started eating this morning and a couple of days ago stopped gasping so i think there is a reasonable chance it will recover. The tetras that died never had ick or other indications of disease - no dots at all. Well let me correct that - the cardinals never developed ick marks. The two serpae did.
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I did get ick in a second tank with a school of ember tetra; i treted it with a combo of salt and ick-x for 1 week. They completely cured after 3 days and there were no deaths in that tank. That tank has two small L397; they both were completely covered in ick and it took 5 or 6 days for them to clear but they have cleared and appear fine.
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In the tank with the clown loaches the following died:
2 serpae tetra
15 cardinal tetra
3 clown loaches
1 zebra loach (I had 10 - now only 9)
2 kuhli loaches
1 krib
1 angle died without any external marks (it was one i had raised as a fry - so a 2 year old large male)
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None of the pleco were impacted (6 pleco - 5 l204 1 bn)
the yoyo were not impacted - had 4 - but one jumped ( have screening in the back over the slit but somehow it managed to force itself out).
the lone glow light was not impacted
the carriers (cherry barb) were not impacted

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I feel bad about the clowns dying and maybe if i had realized why the cardinals were dying i would have acted faster. I'm pretty sure the ick was secondary and there was some sort of bacteria disease. The angel that died did have a puffy spot but not ick marks or red marks - it was also fine one day and eating and the next day dead. Maybe it ate something infected and got a heavy dose of poison.
 

jake72

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The 'dots' vanished weeks ago; it only lasted a few days. THe problem is something was rotting/eating the skin itself. The three that died had no tales left and other areas that showed signs of decay.
(a 3rd one died); the other questionable one started eating this morning and a couple of days ago stopped gasping so i think there is a reasonable chance it will recover. The tetras that died never had ick or other indications of disease - no dots at all. Well let me correct that - the cardinals never developed ick marks. The two serpae did.
-
I did get ick in a second tank with a school of ember tetra; i treted it with a combo of salt and ick-x for 1 week. They completely cured after 3 days and there were no deaths in that tank. That tank has two small L397; they both were completely covered in ick and it took 5 or 6 days for them to clear but they have cleared and appear fine.
-
In the tank with the clown loaches the following died:
2 serpae tetra
15 cardinal tetra
3 clown loaches
1 zebra loach (I had 10 - now only 9)
2 kuhli loaches
1 krib
1 angle died without any external marks (it was one i had raised as a fry - so a 2 year old large male)
-
None of the pleco were impacted (6 pleco - 5 l204 1 bn)
the yoyo were not impacted - had 4 - but one jumped ( have screening in the back over the slit but somehow it managed to force itself out).
the lone glow light was not impacted
the carriers (cherry barb) were not impacted

-
I feel bad about the clowns dying and maybe if i had realized why the cardinals were dying i would have acted faster. I'm pretty sure the ick was secondary and there was some sort of bacteria disease. The angel that died did have a puffy spot but not ick marks or red marks - it was also fine one day and eating and the next day dead. Maybe it ate something infected and got a heavy dose of poison.
Also none of the cory were impacted.
 
Apr 2, 2002
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Sometimes ich can kill before you see it, especially if it attacks the gils. It can also open the fish to secondary bacterial infections.

Many contagious things will affect many or all of the fish i a tank. But the ones which have survived ich can be immune as I have noted. Unless the fish were born in your tank, can you say you know they did not survive ich before you got them?

Here is a pretty decent site about Ich. here are some quick quotes"

Unfortunately, in some cases, Ich may only be present on the gills and mouth – not on the skin or fins. The bad news is that Ich in these areas is very difficult to identify for someone who has never battled it before......

From my experience, a combination of malachite green and formalin is the most powerful way of getting rid of Ich.
But be warned, it’s like a nuke.......

Fish can catch more than one disease at a time. In fact, by coming down with Ich, your fish is actually more likely to be afflicted with another disease.[12] ..........

Even after you have eliminated Ich, your fish are still prone to other bacterial infection and fungal infection – so watch your fish closely in the weeks after treatment, until your fish have returned to full health.
from https://fishlab.com/freshwater-ich/
 

jake72

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Final update; it looks like clown loach #3 will recover. He's been eating robustly the past 2 weeks and his external is slowly healing. Still a bit gun shy and won't associate with the the other loaches but he is putting on weight.
 
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Apr 2, 2002
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Ill fish rend not to socialize. They tend to want to hide. It has to do with not being able to hold up their end if push comes to shove. And sometimes other fish naturally will harass the weak.
 
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