poor clowns

[sarahh]

so, i moved my clowns from quarantine into a 20 gallon with baby acei, and salted water (for my cichlids, i run cichlid salts/ rift lake salts.. for 20 gallons it's a teaspoon each of baking soda, epsom salts and table salt)

they were getting along fine, but then due to pressure from outside sources, i decided to wean the clown loaches off of salts... drip acclimated them for 2 hours into a half salts solution and put them in their own (cycled) 20 gallon. they are still about 1 1/2 inches long, so they don't get the big tank yet. I decided to do this with the babies first as the 4 inch long ones are not replaceable.. if the babies did ok, i would take salts out of all the loach tanks.

Anyway, long story short the fish have ich, i have already lost one. i am dosing with pimafix, and have raised my temperature to 83 and added some aquarium salt (like a teaspoon full)

my question is what do i do now? the water parameters are fine, the pH is a little higher due to the salts and i don't know why these supposedly freshwater fish keep getting ill in freshwater. any clues from the people here?

 

[dkpate]

Clown what?
The temp needs to be 86*F, and the salt measurement is 1 tsp per gallon if you are going to use it. Leave for at least 10 days.
Have you added an air stone? Warmer water has less oxygen, so add an airstone or lower the water level so the filter water splashes more.
How long ago did you add the new fish? Or how long have they been in QT?

 

[sarahh]

clown loaches

i lowered the water level about 2 inches. They were in quarantine for about 2 weeks, then hanging out with the cichlids for a further 2.
the cichlids are fine, but in the new tank, the loaches are bombing out.. it's so weird.. as the water was a bit murky, i did a 25% pwc and put the carbon back in the filter. i will take it out when i dose them tonight

 

[dkpate]

Hmm, 4 weeks and ich never showed up? And now they have ich? Have you put any other new fish in there? That's weird, and I am wondering if it is ich at all. Can you possibly get a pic?
Make sure you keep the carbon out for however many days you are dosing meds. Only put the carbon back in when you want all the meds out, and don't need them anymore.