Neverending Woes... Clown Loach Wasting Away. Help?

[Icewall42]

Well, to anyone that recalls all my tank problems and deaths over the past year or so, the new tank finally seems to be doing okay with some minor leftovers from the old tank (which I never figured out what the problem was). Unfortunately none of the fish seem all that happy but I'm honestly not certain what more I can do for their mood since they've got plants and good hiding spots. Maybe I'm over-analyzing their moods.

The problem, though, is that my biggest clown, who was recently ousted as the alpha by his "buddy" has healed up his split fins, but he has been wasting away for months now. He eats on and off. Usually I need to feed bloodworms to get him out of his non-eating stint. Then he will eat flak for a week or so, and stop eating again. He's thinned out so much that I can almost see his ribs, he tends to float, or "drift", and seems sluggish. I was hoping he'd recover but he's just not gaining any weight no matter what I feed them (have flake, zucchini, and bloodworms).

Should I be trying to treat him with anything, perhaps praziquantel or levamisole? Or is he just going to waste away for good? I can't stand to lose him given that he's 13 years old, but he's such a pathetic shadow of himself I almost can't stand looking at him.

[chefkeith]

When my one skinny clown was wasting away, I quarantined him, and was preparing to euthenize him, but I gave him one last chance. I put him on a bloodworm diet for a few months and he did bulk up. He was in a 20 gallon tank all by himself and the tank had 3 filters on it because I didn't want to risk having any ammonia spikes after feeding him one or two frozen bloodworm cubes per day.

I probably treated the tank with Levamisole and Prazi also (I can't remember exactly how I did it, I probably alternated the meds, and used activated carbon between treatments.). I did several water changes per week. I usually done 2 - 20% water changes back to back a few times per week. Keeping the water quality great and the water chemistry consistent is very important. Nitrates need to stay under 20 ppm and the TDS should stay very steady.

After he bulked up I moved him back to the main tank, and kept feeding him bloodworms daily through a special feeding tube. Then I started to get him to eat other foods, like Martins Fishfood Recipe (without the beefheart), shrimp, cod, tilapia, clams, mussels, and fresh veggies. He still won't touch commercially prepared fish foods. I just make sure I feed all the fish a fresh protein daily. The skinny clown hasn't relapsed since. I did that q-tank treatment about 1.5 years ago.

[Icewall42]

Well, I will be sure to get him the bloodworms he seems to like. Part of the problem might be that he's just not getting enough because the other clowns are so ravenous (the new alpha has been gaining weight since this one has been losing it).

I have a couple of choices, neither of which makes me happy. I can clear the sand out of the old 72g, fill it, stick a less than adequate filter on it, and have him as the only fish in the tank, or put him in the 30g with the Magnum 350 and the tank's current filter, but move the yoyos and skunks in that tank over to the main tank (a 90g). He's kind of a big fish, but the 30g ensures that I'm not treating a bunch of empty water, and he has a better chance of smelling the bloodworms. But the 30g means moving out the loaches that are in it currently, and making sure that one large-ish fish doesn't overbalance the chemistry.

Plus, that 30g is already cycled. The empty 72g is not. Ugh, what choices I guess I'll try praziquantel first on him, and buy him loads of bloodworms.

Edit: What kind of a feeding tube did you use? I've never needed to use one, but perhaps I should start.

[chefkeith]

The feed tube was T shaped and was made with 2" PVC. The clown got in the habit of resting inside the T and would wait for me to drop the bloodworm cube inside the top of the tube. Then he would swim to the top of the tube and eat all the bloodworms before the others had a chance.

Here's a pic-

[Icewall42]

That's handy! If my smaller clowns ever had an issue I might try that, but even though my big guy is much reduced, he's still 11" long so that'd be an awful big T pipe! They have a curved pvc pipe at the moment and it's huge. Unfortunately, all of the clowns use it.