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How to Spot Clown Loach Skinny Disease

How to Spot Clown Loach Skinny Disease

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This post is written to the author's best knowledge and is not intended to be used in place of veterinary advice. In addition, this post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

It’s going to be very concerning if something is wrong with your clown loach. You can grow attached to these fish very easily because of how fun they are.

You might have noticed that some of your clown loaches are losing weight. If they are looking a bit thinner than they should be, then they might have some type of disease.

One common disease that can cause this to occur is known as clown loach skinny disease. It can be a big problem for clown loaches, and you’re going to want to learn everything that you can about it.

Below, you’re going to learn some information about this disease. It’ll help you to understand what it does to clown loaches, and you’ll learn how to treat the disease.

What Is Clown Loach Skinny Disease?

Clown loach skinny disease is a very common thing that clown loaches have to deal with. As you might expect by the name, it’s a condition that causes fish to lose a lot of weight.

Aside from weight loss, clown loaches will also wind up having physical characteristic changes. The back of the fish will have the appearance of a knife and look thinner than usual.

This condition is treatable, but it can be a real problem. It’s caused by an infestation of protozoans.

Over time, the fish is going to continue to lose weight. Eventually, your fish could waste away and die if you don’t take care of the infection.

For a fish to get knifeback disease, it’s going to have to be susceptible to it. It’s said that only fish in poor water conditions will have to deal with this issue.

Bad water quality will stress the fish and make it so that they have compromised immune systems. Then the fish can become infected and they’ll wind up losing weight.

What Are the Signs of This Disease?

The signs of this disease can be hard to spot at first. You see, the fish usually wind up acting normally for a long time.

Your clown loach might keep on eating as it normally does. It’ll even act normal and swim around like nothing is wrong.

You’ll simply notice that the fish is getting thinner over time. Eventually, it’ll become very noticeable that your clown loach is way thinner than it should be.

When the problem advances, you’ll see the characteristic “knifeback” on the fish. At this time, you’ll be able to be sure that the fish is dealing with the skinny disease parasitic infection.

If it was easier to recognize the disease early on, it’d be possible to treat the fish before it got really skinny. Sadly, this isn’t simple.

You can try to keep the water parameters in the right range to make it less likely that your fish will ever get infected. Keeping a clean tank and ensuring that your fish stays as healthy as possible will make a huge difference.

How Can it Be Treated?

Treating this condition isn’t going to be too difficult, but it’ll be best to start treatment right away. Essentially, you’re going to have to use medications that will get rid of the parasites.

There are tablets that you can drop in the water that can do the job. Spirohexol is one of the most common tablet treatments that people use to treat skinny disease.

Other medications that are said to work well include Metronidazole and Sterazin. Some medications might be harder to get than others.

For many, it’ll be easiest to consult with an exotic veterinarian. An expert such as this can get you the medication that you need so that you can treat your fish.

Why Is My Clown Loach So Skinny?

The likely reason why you have a skinny clown loach is that it has skinny disease. Now that you know more about this situation, it should be easier to determine what to do.

You’ll want to treat the fish to try to get rid of the parasite. Until the parasite is gone, the fish won’t be able to properly absorb the nutrients from the food that it takes in.

If you’re certain that the fish doesn’t have skinny disease, then some other things could be happening. Most notably, the fish might not be getting enough food.

This sometimes happens when a smaller clown loach has to compete with larger clown loaches during feeding time. You might need to make more of an effort to ensure that the small clown loach gets its fair share of food.

Another possibility is that the fish isn’t being fed often enough. You’re supposed to feed clown loaches twice per day, but it’s possible that you might be forgetting to feed them sometimes.

Remember to feed the clown loaches on a consistent schedule. This should help to prevent situations where the fish will look unnaturally skinny.

How to Fatten up a Clown Loach

So what if you want to fatten up a clown loach? Perhaps you’re helping it to recover after it contracted skinny disease.

The best thing that you can do for the fish is to try to give it high-quality food. Feed the fish food that you know will give it the nutrients that it needs to thrive.

On a daily basis, you’ll likely be feeding the clown loaches sinking nutritional pellets and algae wafers. These are fine staple foods for these fish, but you can feed them other things to try to help them fatten up.

Try giving the fish freeze-dried foods or live foods as snacks. Clown loaches love snacking on bloodworms and earthworms.

You should also know that clown loaches have an affinity for eating snails. Often, enthusiasts will choose to feed clown loaches pond snails.

The clown loaches will chase the snails down and pull them from their shells. They’re really good at doing this, and it’ll definitely be a treat for the clown loaches.

If you make an effort to feed the fish the best food that you can, then they will surely fatten up. It might take some time, but a consistent feeding schedule using nutritious foods will help out.

Final Thoughts

Skinny disease is something that can seriously harm your clown loaches. When fish contract this parasitic infection, it makes it so that they aren’t getting the proper nutrients from their food.

It’s very hard to notice that anything is wrong with the fish at first. They will very likely keep eating normally and acting how they usually do for a long time.

It won’t be until you notice extreme weight loss that you’ll know something is up. When you see the characteristic “knifeback” on the fish, you’ll know for sure that the clown loach has skinny disease.

Try to prevent this from happening by maintaining good water parameters. Also, do your best to keep the tank clean by doing weekly water changes.

If the fish does get this disease, then you’ll be able to treat it with medications. Various medications are capable of getting rid of the parasites so that your fish can be healthy again.

It might take a bit of time to fatten the fish back up. You’ll just have to keep giving the fish high-quality foods while maintaining a consistent feeding schedule.

Knowing how to solve this issue should help you to feel better. You’ll be able to protect your clown loaches by taking the right actions.

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Tharanga

Friday 17th of March 2023

May I know where the Protozoa could come from? Are they in the fish originally or? Because my fish are imported from Indonesia and could the Protozoa be in his body since several months? I have already lost 3 of them now.

Thank you.