Loaches Online Forum

Hey Guys my first posting. Only recently my interest in Loaches has been rekindled... Now if I can only keep them alive. But that's for another thread.

Recently I bought four Red Tail Botias from a LFS. When I brought them home i noticed one had a torn dorsal fin and his right eye was missing. Since he seems fine otherwise, very active and eats. I decided to keep him. One of the other one who seemed fine when I got him acts withdrawn and sickly. Always laying on its side in a tree trunk or against the glass while the others are eating and frolicing with the clown loaches.

Two weeks has passed since I bought them, now that Botia is still sicky and now his LEFT eye is bugged out like one of the other loached may have tried to poke it out. Any ideas? Or is it a disease that I should be worried about? Any advise would be helpful...

Hi notoo7, and welcome to Loaches Online.

Sorry to hear of the problem with your red-tailed Botia. I take it these are Yasuhikotakia (formerly Botia) modesta?

Can you provide us with a few more details about the tank, such as how long has it been set-up for, what size is it, what are your current water parameters (ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte, pH), how often and what maintenance do you do?

Eye problems such as 'pop-eye' are often caused by poor water quality. If this is the case, addressing this will usually clear up the problem, given a bit of time.

Emma

Looks like I will be doing a water exchange this weekend. It's a 55 gal with artificial plants. Overnight one of the clown loaches died. But I think he ate too much zucchini I left over night

In future, you should try and make sure you remove any big bits of uneaten food rather than leave them in overnight (on more than one occassion I have heard of customers leaving chunks of fruit/veg in their aquarium overnight and this had the effect of removing oxygen from the water, particularly apparent in smaller sized tanks - after removing the food, increasing the aeration and carrying out a large water change, the fish returned to normal). If you have lost a fish, it is likely that ammonia/nitrIte will be present in your water, depending on how long the dead fish was in the tank for. If you haven't got them already, invest in a couple of test kits for ammonia and nitrIte, or even a master kit which will do nitrAte and pH as well. When something goes wrong in an aquarium, chances are it will be at a time the shops are shut, and testing the water is the first thing you should do if you think there is a problem. If you have your own kits at home, you can perform a couple of quick tests to rule out water quality, rather than waiting and taking a sample into a store to test - sometimes those few hours can make all the difference.

I think you should seriously consider doing a partial water change right now, rather than waiting. Ideally where loaches are concerned, you want to be doing at least a couple of small changes a week of approx 10-15% volume each time.

Also, you'll want to observe your modestas carefully, as they can be very aggressive, and are not always ideal species to mix with Clowns, which are much more placid by comparison. A lot of the activity will probably go on at night, as they are nocturnal.

Emma

I knew I shouldn't have left the zucchini in there. I need to get a test kit this evening after work. I will do a 10% change this evening.

As to the Botias, at night time.... Insomnia... They seem to get along with the clowns, the three active ones tend to school with the dominant clowns back and forth along the length of the aquarium. During the day they share a log cave with two of the larger clowns.

The aquarium currently has ten (was 12, I think the WalMart ones are dying off) clowns, two angelicus, four redtail botias (store called them Rassberry Botias), three Balis and four corys.

Three days in an isolation tank with AP Ultra and his eyes are almost back to normal.