What is happening to my loaches??

I'm thinking it was a reaction to the major water change. The loaches have less protection from environental changes than the other fish. Say you've got 40 gallons of water taking into account some displacement for gravel and you're changing out 20% every 14 days, you're only taking out about 8 gallons of water and then again not doing it again for 14 days. You've probably got a pretty good buildup of dissolved organics in that water since you're really not changing enough to dilute and refresh. Then you replaced about 60% of that all at one time. It may have been too drastic a change to them and their skin. Large water changes are not harmful to fish if it's what they are used to. I do about an 80% water change weekly in all my tanks, and when my fry are very young, they're getting 80% changes sometimes every day to remove uneaten food. So there's no significant buildup of anything else in the water to make those changes hard on the fish. You might want to look for the other loaches. If they have gone somewhere and died, you're going to get a nasty ammonia spike which is going to be bad for the other tankmates.
 
8 gallons is probably pretty close. I basically fill a 5 gal bucket twice (though not completely to the top or I'd be sloshing it all over when I took it outside to water my plants). I leave about 2 inches from the top of the bucket. So I'm probably right around 8 or 9 gallons per water change. Should I be increasing this? I was always under the impression that 10% weekly or 20% bi-weekly would be sufficient. Is this just not the case for loaches? I am doing twice-weekly 50% changes for my QT tank at the moment, so it's not as though I cannot increase the changes, I just have always been in the habit for the bigger tank of doing the 20% bi-weekly.

I'll have to hunt for the others, and hope they are OK. :(
 
I'm sorry to hear about your kuhli, and I hope the other loaches are okay. Keep testing for an ammonia spike, since what pinkerts says is worth considering.

I'm not sure I'd make the same call as pinkertd - that the shock of the big water change was the problem - although it is possible.

But regarding your water changes, you might want to step them up a bit - I think most people here would change more water than that. I do about 25% / week. It's hard to judge what you really need, though.
 
Does your house have copper plumbing? Low pH will cause more copper to dissolve.Check the levels in the tank and straight from the tap. Copper is lethal to Loaches, much more so than even Corys which are a bit sensitive to it.
 
I'd step up the water changes to 25% weekly.

If copper were leaching from the piping, wouldn't it have already been accumulating in the old tank water they lived in?
 
No copper plumbing. This house was built in 2000. Although it's possible that in the house in RI, we had copper plumbing. Actually it's pretty likely since that house was built in 1890. But that was over a year ago, so I doubt it's affecting my fish now.

And I'll up by another 5 gal bucket and see how things go. I did a 20% change yesterday, so will do another this weekend, but up it to 25% and see what happens.
 
Have you considered Flavobacterium columnare (a.k.a Columnaris or Flexibacter) as the culprit?

Here's a good article on it:
http://www.flippersandfins.net/flexibacter.htm

Here's a quote from the website above:
"The signs of Flexibacter infection run the gamut from fuzzy lesions of the mouth (“Mouth Fungus”) to septicemia (infection in the bloodstream) to white fuzzy patches scattered over the body, sometimes so severe as to cause the skin to look as if it is shedding or peeling, with the fins disintegrating."

BTW, I'm an amateur, so don't take this as an expert opinion.
 
I had considered it but was not positive, which is why I turned to the boards here. I was hoping someone could positively ID the issue for me prior to starting any treatments that may have worsened things. Anyhow, so far the cories and tetras seem fine - eating, swimming normally, etc. Haven't been able to locate the other loaches, so I have a feeling they either got into one of the decorations that have teeny holes and are hiding or they didn't make it. :( I'm going to continue with partial water changes as often as I can, and go from there. Hopefully everyone else will be OK. I'm wondering if possibly feeding the medicated food for a couple weeks to the rest of the tank might help if that is in fact what the problem was? I'm just not positive if I should do that prematurely?
 
I'm not 100% positive, but I think the medicated foods are all formulated to just treat internal parasites. Glad to hear the other fish are doing well. Lots of clean water does wonders! I wouldn't stress them out with any medication since they are not showing signs of any illnesses.
 
Hi, I was just reading about some disease called Patchy Disease that affects loaches, on Lupin's sticky "Disease Treatment for Hillstream Loaches" and it talks about pale peeling spots on loaches....Check it out...
 
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