Clown Loach Question! injury?

[kaz]

I just went to pet%@ in my area, I got 2 small clown loaches for the price of one 2.99. I notice that they have a kind of fresh human wound alike area in and around the gills, it has spots of red, yellow tan. kind of like underskin fresh skin look with an affected wound. IS THIS NORMAL? I like to know before I put them in my tank with others.

 

[donttaptheglass]

Can you get a picture? and $2.99??!! They're almost $9 a piece here, but bright and colorful and quite healthy . . . could be the difference.

See the movie in my sig . . . .

 

[kaz]

I will try to get some video going, what at the spec of your video compress rate etc to place on here without big file.
my loaches look like yours just with that small area. is this ick?

 

[Zagz]

Ich looks like grains of salt. If it looks like a wound I would QT them. Actually it is a good idea to QT them for a couple of weeks anyway. Loaches are prone to ich easily.

 

[donttaptheglass]

I'm with Zags on that one . . .from the sounds of it, doesn't sound anything at all like Ich, but I have the luxury of a high quality LFS with an in-house Vet that specializes in marine animals (great guy from India . . . always complains that my tank water is "beddy beddy hard" pH-8.2). A QT is definately in order for those guys you have there. Love my loach though . . . heard him make his "click" noise for the first time tonight.

Pictures would be fine, I did the video just for fun . . . however, should you decide to go that way, I created the video with Windows Movie Maker (everyone has it, most people just don't know it. It comes standard with Windows.) When it asks for compression, I put in that I want a 320x240 at a bitrate of about 360 Kbps. I used a Divx codec, but I don't remember which one. It brought it down quite a bit from its original size of 41MB to just over 10MB.

The original video was shot with a Kodak Easy Share Z760 Digicam.

 

[jcarlilesiu]

Up close picture of a clown loach head and gills... notice the thing in front of its eyes. If that is what you are talking about, that is normal.

photo credit www.loaches.com

 

[donttaptheglass]

Yep, they have these little "wings" in front of their eyes that they open up when they are threatened and they open them up to protect their eyes when they burrow into gravel or sand for food . . . .kinda neat, but mine doesn't do it very often . . . his tankmates are all pretty friendly towards him and I keep them fed pretty well so he doesn't have to dig for food.

 

[Bhunsucker]

I would definitely QT Clown loches because of the ich. They are one of my favorite FW fish. Mine make the clicking noise also. When I first got them they had ich but once we got over that they have been wonderful.