Milky Skin on Clown Loaches ??

[shari2]

Make sure you have extra aeration for 02 levels when increasing temp and adding salt.

[thadius65]

Update on the situation. After two days with salt treatment and temp increase, the milky slime coat began to clear up. After 3rd and 4th day, all back to normal. Not sure what it was, but it appears gone. No other fish had the issue, not even the one Clown or the Botia's.

Thanks for all the input.

Ted

[shari2]

That osmotic process can be very beneficial.
Glad to hear all is on the mend.

[thadius65]

That osmotic process can be very beneficial.
Glad to hear all is on the mend.

I feel smarter just reading that!!

Thanks.

[chefkeith]

Salt treatments can be very benefitial because it refreshes and cleans the slime coat, but it can be dangerous if a large water change is done after the treatment. Acclimating the fish back to normal water conditions needs to be done very slowly.

For a few years, I had fully planted tanks for my loaches. I dosed the tanks with ferts that I ordered from Greg Watson and I did about 50% weekly water changes. My clown loaches didn't like the method of my large water changes and they would break out with black spots. It took me forever to figure out what the spots were from.


IMO, the EI method is flawed and can be dangerous to fish.
I can almost prove this. I wrote a water change program that calculates and estimates TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) changes after water changes. With scheduled water changes, the TDS should plateau at a safe level, but if ferts are added, the TDS may climb to much higher levels. The larger the water change, the more dangerous the TDS drop can become, IF the tank water's chemistry greatly differs from the source water.

To be safe, the objective should be to never drop the TDS rapidly. Increasing the TDS is not nearly as dangerous as dropping the TDS.

One remedy is to premix the source water with ferts before the water change, then it will be much safer for the fish. In other words, all the new water going into the fish tank should be treated with the ferts before it is added to the fish tank. The problem with this is that most peoplle don't have a spare tank or a large trash barrel to do the mixing. A 125 gallon tank would need a 55 gallon tank or trash barrel to premix the water before a water change is to be done.

Myself, I now have a 95 gallon tank that I use to hold and treat water before water changes. I no longer dose my tanks with ferts anymore either though because I switched to a low light/low plant maintenance scheme. I no longer use automated CO2 either.

FYI, a TDS meter would be benefitial in calculating/estimating dosage sizes for ferts.