Velvet on my clown loaches

[TheXman]

I got four new clown loaches a week ago, they've mostly been hiding, and I almost never see all of them out at once. Recently though, I have been seeing two of them come out at feeding time. I noticed yesterday that one was darker than the other and his colors looked duller. But they were fighting over food and had heard that their colors could darken when they fought. Today though, I noticed that he is still darker (don't remember him being so much darker than the others when we bought them) I started wondering about velvet, so I did the flashlight test and could see gold flecks on his skin. He isn't scratching himself though and seems to be the most active, adventurous, and hungry clown of the bunch. Should I start treating for velvet? If so, what should I use? Has anyone here successfully treated this disease in their loaches, and how did you do it? Thanks in advance!
Josh

[Glostik]

I have a gang of 20 or so clown loaches in my tank.

Some are just darker than others normally. I believe that they are darker from some parts of where they come from.

If hes acting normal, I wouldnt worry about it just yet.

[TheXman]

Since all of my clowns are new and still settling in, it's hard to tell if any of their behavior is normal. He's skittish, but comes out more than the others. If he doesn't seem to be scratching himself against objects and is still foraging and fighting for food, would you consider that to be normal enough behavior?

[TheXman]

OK, some people on other forums started getting me worried about Ick, so I decided to pull the caves and castle I had in the tank for a few minutes so I could get a look at all of the loaches at once to make sure that they all looked fine. Only problem is that when I did this, I only found one loach out of four! Then I started looking in my sump when I heard flipping sounds in the castle,(still sitting sideways over the top of my tank) and there was a loach who had creeped out of some deep tunnel within the castle that I couldn't see when I inspected it! Well, I immediately placed him and the castle back in the tank and gave up on my ill-conceived plan to inspect all of the loaches. I'm hoping that the other two loaches were in the castle too, doing fine, just not ready to come out of the deep recesses of their fortress, but I do wonder if one or both of the missing loaches are in the corner overflow of the tank. I did put a screen over the teeth of the overflow because when I first added the zebrafish to the tank, I had five zebrafish in the overflow within two hours, but there is still about a half inch of space between the top of my overvlow teeth and the lid of my tank that a jumper could potentially use to get into the overflow. Unfortunately, I can't get into a position to see the overflow of the tank well enough to easily check if they are there without taking out the standpipe and risking having any fish in there go into the tubing. The standpipe at least is screened off, so I know they aren't in there! I did see three of them together this morning, should I assume that they are fine and wait for them to come out, or should I take out my standpipe and search for them in the overflow?

[shari2]

Botiine loaches are notorious for squirming into the smallest possible places. They like to huddle. There have been horror stories of 'stuck' loaches in decor similar to your castle. Some have had to go so far as to break them to get the fish out. Once they've made a space 'home' they tend to try to get in there even after they have grown too big. Can lead to damage and/or a stuck loach.

One way to solve the problem is to fill the cavity with aquarium silicon or cover the hole so they can't get into it. They will dig under it if necessary so the hole needs to be closed off.

I wouldn't take the tank apart just yet. Try feeding bloodworm just after lights out and see if you can get them all out of the castle. If they come out, remove it. Hold it over the tank if you can't see them all and you may find one comes wiggling out.

You may want to consider removing the castle and either closing off the entry or covering it. Possibly even replace it with something else that has entry and exit. Or a nice piece of bogwood that provides a shady hiding spot.

As for the darker one? It may be just his color, or it can be pecking order related. Often the dominant loach will maintain a darker color than the others. If his behavior is normal, I would just wait and watch.

[chefkeith]

OK, some people on other forums started getting me worried about Ick.....

Yep, I was one of them people. If You don't quarantine new fish you're bound to run into this problem sooner or later. I'm just trying to help. I hope you don't think I'm nitpicking because I'm really not.

[TheXman]

Hey chefkeith,
No worries, I'm taking it all as advice from people who have more experience than I do in fishkeeping. I'm going to see about picking up a used 20-30 gal tank off of craigslist to use as a quarantine tank. I've actually lost a couple of guppies to what appears to be harassment by the zebrafish, so a quarantine tank would have been nice in these situations as well.
Regarding the castle, I saw three of the loaches together this morning again, so at least one of them had been in there last night. I also figured out that I can see up the overflow from the bottom, and didn't see any loaches hanging around down there, so I'm pretty sure they were all in the castle. I'll give them a few more days to come out on their own, then try the bloodworms maybe first thing in the morning since that appears to be when most of them are out anyway, pull the castle, and try to seal up the really deep crevices that they might get stuck in.

[millergti20]

Hiya i bought 4 clowns for my 2nd tank about 2 weeks ago they have been hiding away since i bought them, they come out at feeding time for a quick nibble but thats about all at the moment. I wouldnt worry about it just yet im not with mine because in my other tank when i added 4 clowns they took about 6 weeks to become happy with there new tank mates and now 5 months down the line they are active all the time and come to the surface to feed on flakes and swim around at about mid level in the tank with the plattys that are also in the tank.
1 of the 4 clowns i have recently bought did die he got trapped in some fake grass last weekend that the pleco uprouted, it was my fault really as i should have put it back in place before i went away for the weekend. so as your loaches grow i would concider changing the castle as advised by shari2, because the do get in places that you wouldnt think possible!!
Happy loach keeping
steve[/img][/url][/list][/list]

[TheXman]

I'm pretty convinced now that the one loach is just darker, his appearance hasn't gotten any worse since I first started worrying a few days ago, and if anything, he's coming out and foraging more during the day than he did before, sometimes joined by his "wingman". My only concern now is that I only see as many as three at a time (in the morning before the tank light is turned on and it's still dark enough that it would be easy to miss one of the loaches if they were all out). Maybe I should test for ammonia and nitrites again, if one did get stuck, those would probably start spiking a couple of days after he died, right?

[TheXman]

Well, I found the missing loach today during a w/c, found him dead when I moved one of the caves, no idea what killed him. The loach that I was worried had velvet is still alive and well, and still darker than the other two, and still the most aggressive one, so I guess he is just showing he's the dominant one. I now see this one and his buddy more often during the day. Do the females have slightly taller bodies with more arch to their backs? If so, I think the "buddy" is a female, if you can even tell at 2.5-3 inches. Anyway, I'm still seeing all three swimming together in the morning before the lights come on, but only the two while the lights are on.