Loach is puffing but friends are not

[louandjames]

Hi all,

We have three clown loaches the size of your hand. Many other smaller loaches along with gouramis, neon tetras, barbs and sharks in a 240L tank. They have all been in there for months no stress, no fish dead, and at last testing (last weekend) our fish man said tank parameters are normal. Nothing new in diet and no major changes to the tank.

One of our clown loaches has started puffing, breathing twice as fast as normal. He's been doing it for 4 days now. He's darkened in colour whilst the others are all breathing normally and looking fine. If you look in this video you will see that the others are all bright orange and he is kind of beige.

Any ideas at all on what could be causing this would be really appreciated. Do you think a fish can live long term, breathing crazily like this? He is eating, sleeping, playing almost the same as the other fish.

Thanks so much for any advice, really appreciated,

Louise

 

[Nils]

Do you have your own testing kit? If you brought the water to a PetSmart or Petco then they will almost always tell you that your water is "fine". They do this so you buy more fish and to make money. I don't know what's causing the weird breathing but you should definitely invest in an API Freshwater Liquid Master Test Kit. We need to know your parameters ASAP. Don't even bother buying test strips because they are inaccurate and don't give correct parameters. Normally when a fish is breathing very fastly and gulping for air it either means that the fish is a) sick or b) stressed. A fish can't live like this long term and I'd say that if you don't get it fixed soon that the fish will die.Also, please know that a clown loach can't live in a 240 liter for it's whole life. These fish grow 12"+ so you need at LEAST 150 gallons for three of these fish.