Clown Loaches not eating

[zman]

Hey guys,

i'm a little concerned about my loaches not eating, i've had them about 6 months it's a 4ft x 1.5ft tank. tank mates are four australian rainbow, a bristlenose catfish and 10 red phantom tetras.

I'm from queensland, Australia a week and a half ago a huge cyclone hit the area and we lost power for about 3 days, tank was a little over run by algae , so power on now, water changes every day and finally the water looks great raindbows and tetras look happy and eating well. the clowns are another matter though. i wasn't too worried for the first week, they were mostly hiding and not at all interested in food. the last few days they have been out a little more but still not keen on eating. tonight i even tried some prawn which they usually go crazy for but they came out had a tiny nibble then went back to hiding.

isthere anything i can try to get them eating again? how long would they usually take to be interested in food again after something like this? i am getting quite concerned.

thanks everyone.

[Diana]

Welcome to Loaches.

If they are turning up their noses at prawns, there may be something more severe wrong than just the stress of a power outage.

Try flavoring their food with garlic. Mash a bit of garlic and soak their favorite food in it, then feed the mashed bits of garlic as well as the flavored food. I do not know why, but many fish seem to like the taste of garlic.

[starsplitter7]

Dear Zman,

I am so sorry to hear about your cyclone and power loss. I live in FLorida, US, and my biggest worry is power loss during hurricanes. I have batter powered aerators, but I know it isn't enough. If I just lose power, I will do water changes to keep the water fresh and add oxygen while I pour water into the tank.

Good luck, and hopefully the clean water and garlicy prawns will calm your fish.

[zman]

The garlic prawn worked wonders! Thank you, they went crazy for it, which was a relief.

battery aerators sounds like something i should look into, unfortunatly (for the fish) i was out of town when the cylone hit, the airport closed and i couldn't get back. But after all my concern it seems like tank life is getting back to normal, i'll be keeping a close eye on them though.

Thank you!

[starsplitter7]

That is great news! So glad they are eating again.

We are instructed to evacuate during hurricanes, but we have been pretty lucky with minor storms. Would be really frightening to leave the fish behind. I could only take my land animals with me. Hopefully you won't go through this again, and your fish will recover back to normal.