Loaches Online Forum

The laoch and planted tank is about 2 yrs old. The color faded cmpletely 3 weeks ago. Loach very shy but is eating well as in picture. Now some black is reappearing. Could it be diet, cause I change pallet brand last week. Any idea why?
Thanks in advance.

What are your water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? Maybe add temperature and PH too. What do you have for stock in this tank? What size of tank? If you can answer these questions it will help the experts on this site figure out what's happening to your clown.

Tammy

WOW!

That's different. Haven't seen anything like that before, myself.

anyone?

I've never seen fading like that in a clown either. And the pleco looks thin too...

fish_frenzy wrote:What are your water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? Maybe add temperature and PH too. What do you have for stock in this tank? What size of tank? If you can answer these questions it will help the experts on this site figure out what's happening to your clown.

Tammy

Don't have test except for pH. Its 6.8 with CO2 2 bps. 55w + 36w normal PLL. Water temp 27.8C (weather 25 to 32c). Tank 2ft x 2ft x 3ft(w). Clown is about 4in & largest one, 2 kuhli, 1 kubotai & 1 zebra. Others are 10 cardinal tetra, 5 rednose, 2 SAE, 5 Oto, 1 farlowella, 4 Cory and a few white shrimps. All other fishes healthy and none died for a long time. Using carbon filtered overnight water from tank, daily top because of evaporation from cooling fan and monthly 10% when washing canister filter. Thanks.

there could be a chance that even though this fish was normally coloured when young has the genes of a xanthic fish, that slowly is loosing it's pigment, the sturisoma and oto are perfectly healthy specimens IMO

mick

wow!

daily top because of evaporation from cooling fan and monthly 10% when washing canister filter. Thanks.

This is not a good regiment, 10-20% weekly water changes by removing and replacing water. Cover your tank to avoid evaporation like that. It builds solids to terrible levels. You must slowly get back to a normal maintenance schedule. My Clowns have been at 32c without problems but you must increase airation a bit as high temp lowers O2 levels. The light gravel may be contributing some but I'll repeat

What is your tap PH, is it over 7.0 ? That you can check as you are without additional test kits and may help narrow down your problem