Help with Khuli loaches ASAP please!!!

[kaffinated]

Long story short. Had a ten gallon tank with about 15 khuli's, one albino catfish, a couple shrimp (which all but the HUGE one are long gone - eaten I suppose) and three yellow "glowfish"). My loaches played all day swimming along the sides of the tank, having a blast.

Then, I posted here and was told that my tank was way too small for them and so i went out and bought a 20L. Since then, my loaches BARELY come out, only to eat and scrounge for food and some of them have the white film on them that others have described. I added a little salt to the tank and nothing changed.

Then, I noticed my new pleco was getting the white too and he came from a petstore where all the other fish were fine (I'm VERY picky about my fish suppliers) and i'm noticing that my loaches seem to be breathing a bit heavier.

So, I bought this fungus remover stuff, (API Fungus cure to be exact) and as soon as I added it to my tank one of my loaches FLIPPED out. Have I screwed myself? I'm so lost.... These poor guys are lethargic as it is and i miss my fun little guys - I don't know what else to do.... they have plenty of hiding spaces, caves, plants, moss, etc... 70g aquaclear filter, raised the temp to 86 and just put in the fungus cure....

All I want is for my boys and girls to be happy.... have a few pregnant females and it's destroying me that they're just not themselves anymore.... Should I do an immediate water change??? Should I leave them alone? Should I go back to the ten gallon? Ugh, I'm lost!!!

Oh, and I had my water tested and it's fine - all my levels were good, ph, nitrates, ammonia, all were perfect yesterday.

Help please?

[Diana]

Great that you were able to get a larger tank for these interesting fish! Too bad they are not able to take advantage of it right now. Lets make sure you are treating for the right problem.

Many fish diseases are actually bacterial, not fungal in origin. A white coat or patches might be Columnaris, caused by Flavobactria columnare.
This disease gets worse at high temperature, high nitrates and high organic matter levels. It responds to most antibiotics.

A low level of salt helps fish that are stressed, but is not very effective as an antibiotic. Most Loaches are not very tolerant of high levels of salt, nor of fast changes in the level of salt. 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons is reasonable, but if you have more than this reduce the level slowly.

Here is a link that may help you figure out what might be going on:
http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/diseases.html
scroll down to all the blue tabs and do a little research.
In the meantime do plenty of water changes, emphasizing gravel vacs to keep the level of organics as low as possible.

Sounds like you are taking samples of water to the store for testing. It would be good to get your own test kit, even the multi-test strips would be better than not being able to test at home.

[kaffinated]

Well, whatever was in the stuff I'd bought was toxic to my little guys and between last nite and this morning I lost 7 so far...

As soon as I saw their reaction I set up a small tank really quickly (I don't have a quarantine tank, nor room for one right now but when I move within the year the biggest factor will be room for my fishtanks lol).... I then did a HUGE water change on the big tank and let it cycle a while.

In the meantime, my angelfish, glowfish, albino cat and pleco were all still in the tank and doing fine.

I gave it some time and then put the surviving loaches back in. Well, though I did stuff wrong I must have done stuff right too cause I woke up this morning to one dying, one dead - but one was playing like they used to!!! and, when i checked the rest, they all looked pretty well to me... one looks like he could go eithr way but the rest seem fine. One even came out just now to watch me write this lol.

So, gonna give the tank a few days to settle. I'll have money on Tuesday and I'll finally be able to pick up my own test kit so I'll understand all this a bit more and once my tank seems under control again I may see if I can find a site online that sells some of the "funkier" Kuhli loaches like the green or the straight black. I love my ferret looking buddies but maybe a little diversity... we'll see....

First priority is getting this tank up to par....

So sad though, I lost about 12 of my little guys cause of this mess... =(

Anyone know any good aquarium places that sell Khuli's in the NY area for when I've got my tank back together again?

[Diana]

Sad to lose so many of them.
Yes, large water change to dilute the medicine that created the problem, and add activated carbon to remove whatever is left in the tank.

[kaffinated]

Yup, that's pretty much what I did and I added sand on top of the substrate that I'd had and the ones that are left have become really active again... I do have one female that's been holding on for a couple days now and I can't decide if it would be better to save her the suffering or not. She's trying so hard and she moves around the tank but.... every now and then she just lays on her side.... but she doesn't wanna give up and it's so hard to een think of giving up on her... any thoughts?