Weather Loach Issue

[Zaffimitsu]

One of my weather loaches is breathing hard, he has a brown spot on his back and head, and he's kind of inactive. I say kind of because he's usually lazy, just laying in the gravel, but now he just hides in his dragoncave and comes out at night and feeding time. I'm keeping him in a 30 gallon tank with two dwarf puffers and one other weather loach. I have been treating him with melafix for the past fours days.

I don't know if this matters, but I feed him tropical flakes and feed the puffers bloodworms and snails and such. Heavy filtering, and the tank is at 80 degrees farenheight.

Edit:: I forgot to mention the back part of his body seems to drift up every now and then.

[shari2]

80F is really too high for weather loaches long term. And though I don't know much about dwarf puffers...they may not be good tankmates.

You can find the newly updated species description for weather loaches HERE.

[Zaffimitsu]

Oh dang. 68 degrees? I feel so bad. The people I asked told me 80 was okay, and so did the other sites.

I'm moving my dwarf puffers out soon, and then I'll slowly drop the temperature. Geez, I feel bad.

[shari2]

The gasping may be simple lack of enough oxygen. Get an airstone in the tank, or drop the water level a bit so that the return water gets a good splash going. If possible, start lowering the temp. Now.

[Zaffimitsu]

I will, right now. I'm dropping it as I speak. Tomorrow, I'll go to petsmart and buy him an air rock thing. Don't they shoot bubbles up or something?

Thanks for the help. Hoping for more.

[Martin Thoene]

............and it's possible that the marks are puffer bites. Most puffers are not good tank mates. Very nippy and their jaws are immensely strong.

Martin.

[Zaffimitsu]

He's had these brown spots before I put the puffers in. I'm holding onto the puffers before my 10gal gets in.

[shari2]

About dropping the temp...don't too it too quickly. Don't want to stress him further. Would not be good to go from 80 to 70 in an hour. Besides, you still have to consider the other fish. Though, I would definitely get him/them away from the puffers...

[Zaffimitsu]

Yeah, I thought of that. This is my first aquarium that I'm doing all by myself so it's getting kind of hard.

Kind of offtopic, but could I keep three weather loaches in a 30 gallon for a little bit?

[shari2]

BTW--welcome to LOL

Three in a 30g? How big are they? Juvenile or full grown? They get fairly large when fully grown and a 30 might not be enough room lengthwise for them to stretch their legs. While they are small, a 30 would be ok, in my opinion. But they DO grow...

[Zaffimitsu]

I know. I stated in my first post they're in a 30 gallon. I'm getting a 100 gallon, maybe larger, soon. I will probably keep the two I have in the 30 and get the third when I get my new one.