bloodworms are not a good food for them. i only feed mine proper fish food, and keep them in packs of 12 or more.

There is a similar thread here http://fishkeepers.co.nz/forums/viewtop ... f=4&t=1467

When i did a google search I found that levamisole is very effective at treating clown load skinny disease..

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... ?news=1170

And levamisole is pretty much the easiest drug for worming fish you can get

Yeah, I would wonder if it was worms too. Couldn't hurt to treat them just to be safe. Could also be a bacterial infection.

If it is a bacterial infection nutrition may be playing a part. Animals that eat vegetation usually have much more developed digestive tracts than animals that do not (I am generalising here). These digestive tracts are designed to work hard at metabolising cellulose (vegetable fibre) and if there is not enough cellulose in the diet the gut can go into stasis or develop gut flora imbalances - among other things - and this can result in a failure to absorb nutrients which can cause weight loss, infertility and decreased resistance to disease. The more the intestines work, the better the normal gut flora will be and this will enable good absorption of nutrients. I feed my GBAs all kinds of vegies (pumpkin, cucumber, courgette, carrot, parsnip, turnip) and algae wafers and my loaches always spend a lot of time also eating the vegies until they get very round bellies. Most of your cellulose eaters will have round bellies with lots of intestinal action (and large poos). :roll: Just look at my fat happy Ottos that look like they have beer bellies....

So, if you aren't offering lots of cellulose to supplement a varied omnivourous diet, that might be one area that can be improved. Keep in mind, commercial diets are not always sufficient. Take rabbits for example, they have commercially 'complete' rabbit pellets but rabbits just do not thrive without a diet composed primarily of hay (as a source of cellulose). Also, the food must be in a form that is edible, i.e. not hard as a rock....

Of course I am not a fish expert, so others may have some more specific advice. Anyway, I hope that helps a little.

bloodworms are not a good food for them. i only feed mine proper fish food, and keep them in packs of 12 or more.

Thats contrary to advice I've received in the past. Whats "proper fish food"?

something with protein in it and lots of vitamins.

I know they like hikari cichlid gold (got to be the best and cheapest thing you can feed them)

colour bits

arowana pellets

flake food - could be any flake

blood worms are nutritionally devoid. they are good to use for soaking in meds and that garlic guard thing henward likes using.

Ive found another loach in my tank with skinny so ive brought some Avivarim and dosed accordingly.

Now its a waiting game and hope they get better.

something with protein in it and lots of vitamins.

I know they like hikari cichlid gold (got to be the best and cheapest thing you can feed them)

colour bits

arowana pellets

flake food - could be any flake

blood worms are nutritionally devoid. they are good to use for soaking in meds and that garlic guard thing henward likes using.

I don't just feed bloodworm, they get Wardley Shrimp Pellets, JBL Novo Pleco Chips or Tetramin flake food.

Let us know how you get on Si. I tried to buy that Avivarim stuff and was told that it was not the right thing to use and was sold Drontal instead. Which according to people on here is also the wrong stuff because it has more than just praziquantel in it. :evil: Guess my first mistake was telling them what it was for. Where did you get yours?

Don't use drontal if you need prazi get droncit instead..

Just buy bird wormer called aviverm it is available offline from hippo.co.nz I think? A google search in NZ usually brings up a few places selling it..

Don't use drontal if you need prazi get droncit instead..

Yes.... I know that. Turns out droncit didn't work anyway. Well it seemed to, either that or it was the increased feeding the loach got fatter, but then suddenly died so... *shrugs*