My smallest clown loach looks very unwell. She's lying on her side a lot more than normal clowns do. Not breathing heavily but kind of shallow. Gills are pink, but her gills have always been kinda red. She's the smallest of my 3, and always has been. She hasn't grown since I've had her, but the other two have. Her colour looks good. Ammonia is 0. I don't have any other test kits except pH.

I think she might be too far gone, but any suggestions? :(

Have you tried any treatments yet? Loaches are hard to treat since they are scale-less. I might try to add just a bit of salt, but only half the normal dose.

Leema, I'm wondering how often you do water changes. I remember this happened not too long ago with a couple of your other loaches. Just trying to nail it down here. Frequency, water treatments, etc. Any changes in the tap water that you know of?

The loach died. I didn't try any treatments - I don't have a spare tank at the moment, with bristlenose fry.

It happened to corydoras (3/6) before, in another tank.

I do a 20% water change once a week with water from the tap - which has always had the same readings whenever I've tested it.

:frown: sorry about you clown loach leema, hopefully next time we can get them saved in time.....what do you think caused it?

Darn. Sorry to hear that Leema.

I think there might have been something wrong with that loach physically/biologically... He never grew in the time I had him, and was the smallest of the three... The other two have grown and have different behaviour to that one. That's my best guess. :unsure:

I can't remember which, but I know one of the cities in Australia is switching to RO water thanks to a new device that saves engery. You wouldn't happen to be in that city, would you? Not that that would be causing this, just curious.

What's the pH of your water? For example.... My water is pretty alkaline at 8.3. I've kept several dojo loaches over the past 6 months. The first one I kept acclimated well and is growing daily, eats well, and is very healthy. The next dojo loach I had lasted about a week and then suddenly died. I bought a third dojo loach, and he's doing as well as the other one. Noticeably smaller, but still doing well none the less. The smaller loaches are harder to acclimate, and are more susceptible to water quality, such as extreme pH or ammonia or nitrite spikes.

My pH is 7.8ish. (It was a bit hard to tell on the test, but something in that range... 7.4-8.)

I had these three loaches for about 3-4months? I could look it up, but a fair while, anyway. :)

SM - I haven't heard that our water is going to be ROised (if that's a word :P). I'm in Adelaide, and I don't know which city it is that you're talking about.

Leema, sorry to hear about your fish. I think you are right though, if it didn't grow like the rest of them and all. :(