Loaches Online Forum

Hi there, i'm a newbie to this forum. I was wondering if someone can help me as I have 2 clown loaches, i've had them for about 2 1/2 years but i've noticed that one of them has a large\swollen stomach (like the one in the youtube link below), he\she is still eating, I normally place a cucumber in the tank in one day and sinking tablet the following day. I perform water changes once a week the water parameters are PH 7.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0 and Nitrate 10. Please can someone give me advice or is in the same situation to see if this is normal.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=eLz5JHb3x6U

Welcome to LOL, ciphury.

Tell us more about the tank, please? What size, temp, decor, filtration, other inhabitants?

What size are the clowns? As they get older some get quite chubby. It isn't always easy to sex them, but females do get rounder and males seem to have a larger, more deeply forked tail. If all else seems to be fine with your clowns it may just be you have a female...

Hi Shari,

Thankyou, I have a 4 foot tank, with a ehiem external fitration with some bogwood, live plants and a fake bamboo shute for the clown loaches home. The clown loaches are about 3-4 inches. I use RO to do the water changes with added minerals. I have 3 davidsandsi corydoras, 1 oto, 4 neon rainbow fish and a bristlenose plec in my tank. I borrowed my friends PH tester and that recorded the PH was about 6.1, although my chemical tester read 7.2 (I have had the test kit for ages so believe its faulty) yesterday so I have added minerals to the water to raise the PH gradually and this morning it was about 6.2-6.4 just incase, not sure the low PH would affect the clowns. I was worried because stomach looks like the one in the youtube movie and he stated the clown died a couple days later. The temperature of the tank is 26.2. The roundness of the clown loach falks out at the sides of the clown loach, i'm not sure whether this is normal or not.

thankyou

Daniel

In that video, the belly at that time looked normal to me. I would bet that it died from asphyxiation and infections from the wounds it encountered during it's battle.

In cases where the belly is bloated due to infections and fluid build up, there isn't really anything you can do to help. The belly would look round like a balloon in these terminal cases.

Some of the time, the bulging belly means it's a female who is reaching maturity and is producing eggs. In these instances, the belly would appear to be in a tear drop shape.

In other times, the bulging belly is just obesity. The fish eats too much and doesn't get enough exercise. If this is the case, you may need to make some environmental changes to stimulate the fish to swim more. Powerheads can help increase water flow and a tank with a bigger footprint would help. Look into river tank set-ups. You can also give the loach more of a vegetable diet, which includes fresh vegetables like cucumber and zucchini.

Also I wouldn't worry about or change the pH. If the kH is steady and the nitrates are low, then the water should be fine.

Thankyou for your reply, its put my mind at ease, it does look like a tear drop effect when looking from the side of the clown loach. I have left the PH change as it is stable. I'll try buying a power head to create more water flow in the tank to give it bit more of an exercise and i'll try the zuchini as i put a cucumber in there every other day.

Thankyou for your help.

Hi, the stomach has increased, I've found more pictures of what the stomach really looks like.

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/f ... hp?t=21858

To me those pics look like a fat stomach or obesity, which is quite normal for clown loaches if they eat well.

Look at the clown loach in this thread. What you don't want especially is bloating with the eyes protruding.
http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=13071

Hi ciphury,

Steve said that you phoned the shop this evening re: your clown loach. Unfortunately he was not able to talk for long as it was after closing time and the garden centre wanted to set the alarm, so apologies for that.

Please could you post a photograph of the affected clown as it is difficult to make any diagnosis without this (a picture speaks a thousand words). If it really does look like the one in the video, then it's likely that it is overfed/constipated, and possibly at the beginnings of being stunted. You may already have plans underway, but 4" clown loaches require a larger tank than a 4ft, and sooner rather than later.

Could you tell us how quickly the loaches stomach became swollen looking, was it days, weeks or months?

If the loach has been eating too much food, this may or may not be down to the amount you are adding to the tank. Keeping just 2 clowns is far from ideal. They are a highly sociable species that require company of their own kind (which means a large shoal, 5 being the absolute minimum) for their long term happiness and wellbeing. When there are only 2 in an aquarium, they will often scrap for dominance - the Alpha position - and if/when one emerges victorious, it will often hog a large proportion of the food, chasing the other away every time until it's had it's fill. This may be more than the loach actually requires at any one feeding time.

If you could add a photograph, I am sure we could all comment further. You will need to upload this to a photo hosting site (such as www.photobucket.com, which is free) and then copy and paste the IMG codes into your message.

Hope this helps,

Emma

Thank you so much for your quick reply, I had a look at the picture that chefkieth posted and it dosen't look like that it has swollen eyes which I hope is a good sign. I didn't feed them last night. When I get home from work tonight I'll see if I can try to get a picture of the loach, I might need to try to catch it in a net and then take a picture as I was unsuccessful trying to take a picture of him in the tank. I have tried feeding it daphina as I have been told thats a lacitive if it is constipated, along with a treatment of Interpret Internal bacteria, 2nd dose was monday night along with added salt. Before that when i first noticed it I added the de wormer product to it. Its taken about 2 days for the swelling to appear and that was about 2 weeks ago.

Hi I've managed to catch the loach into a holding pen without using the Net to hopefully get some clearer pictures. I did notice on one of the pictures that one eye looks more puffed up than the other but I compared the picks with the ones with the loach that had dropsy, it dosen't look the same and I did put a second dose of anti internal bacteria which is meant to treat dropsy on monday night. Does these images help. Do you think that I should leave feeding them tonight which will be the second night without food.

Yeah, that doesn't look good. The eyes looked bugged out a bit. I'd quarantine it and treat it there.

unfortunately, that's not the image of a gravid loach.
the eyes are definitely protruding a bit, and the roundness is too uniform.

could you leave the fish in that container for 24 hours and see if it is pooping at all?
have you seen it poop?
is it still eating (when you feed)?

if it is constipation, you could try some soft/deshelled peas as a laxative and see if that helps.

is it just my eyes playing tricks or does the vent seem to be a bit discolored/bulging?

as emma asked, how long did it take to get like this? Is it increasing rapidly?
here's a discussion on bloat that may be helpful:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... hp?t=45617

One eye is more protuding than the other, he has been in the bloated situation for about 2 weeks, i've only just noticed the eyes when i put the clown loach in the container. The first time I saw his bloated stomach I did see him poop. I broke up a sinking pellet and I did see him eat, I also gave him some daphina at the beginning of the week.

It does look like the vent is protruding, what does this mean?, i thought that was part of the eye.

It must of taken 2 days for the stomach to swell as prior to that it seemed fine. He has been like this for about 2 weeks now.

I can't understand why one eye protudes more than the other, i thought they are both suppose to protude.

I did some research and there is another case could malawi bloat which is a condition that normally affects chiclids but apparently can affect tropical fish as well.

Treatment that I have tried so far :

Interpret anti bacterial infection 2 dosages (as stated on the directions) + aquarium salt.

The treatment that i'm thinking of using is Waterlifes Octozin as this is suppose to deal with Dropsy and Malawi Bloat, do you think this is a good idea, i'm running out of any ideas.

Just be careful with water changes and the removal of salinity from the water. That can make it worse by causing more internal pressure and bloating.

Unfortunately the loach died at about 10:30 one of my prized possession of the tank