floating loaches

[carrie]

Hi I recently purchased a pair of weather loach,I've had them about 2 weeks and one is worrying me.It is often lying on surface on its side doing a real good impression of a dead fish,the only thing that makes it swim back down is if i actually prod it with my finger,its been doing this pretty much since i put it in the tank,any ideas? the other is mostly under weeds or hiding in log,there is one medium coi and two goldfish in same tank

[DainBramage1991]

Can you tell us a bit more about the situation? What size tank? Parameters such as water temp, pH, ammonia level, nitrite and nitrate levels would be helpful as well.
Were the loaches healthy looking in the dealer's tank? Were they swimming energetically there? Was the salesperson careful when when capturing the fish (a swim ladder injury is one possible cause of a floating fish)? Did you acclimatize the loaches properly before letting them loose in your tank?

Without knowing some specifics, it's difficult to guess what's going on here.

[theloachmaster]

i am 99% shure its the goldfish, if you have the water to their needs, then you cant have other fish in there, or it will harm or kill them.

goldfish, they dont have a stomach, the food they eat goes right to their intestines, so that means when you feed them more, it creates a lot of ammonia, so, it is very hard to keep goldfish with other fish( unless there feeder goldfish), so if i were you, i would get rid of the goldfosh, or get 2 tanks, or get a bigger tank(last option posible, since the difference in there water ranges).
this is from research and experiance with goldfish and other fresh water fish.

[Diana]

Floating, on its side is not good. Usually these fish will hang out on the floor of the tank, and may burrow under the substrate. Sometimes they hang out among the plants. Literally hanging in the branches and perching on the leaves.
But just drifting in the water is not normal.

If you can test your water for all the usual things, and do water changes as needed, that may help. Adding new fish to a tank can result in more ammonia until the beneficial bacteria catch up, so I would test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, and do enough water changes to keep the ammonia under .25 ppm and the nitrite under 1 ppm until the bacteria grow to a larger population. Then keep the nitrate under 20 ppm. In a well established system the bacteria should catch up very quickly (a week or so), so there should be no problem now (2 weeks after getting the fish).
I also worry that there is some problem as suggested DainBramage such as injury when he was caught.

Weather Loaches and Goldfish usually get along fine. Koi get really big, and belong in a pond, not most average tanks. Even Golds grow too large for most home aquariums. They grow fast, too. I had 3 Golds in a 45 gallon tank for only a few months before they were large enough to place outside in my pond.