Smartiefox

Small update as promised. The ammonia test arrived and resulted in 0 to 0.1 ppm NH3/NH4 level. Gladly this is not a problem. Additionally I did a chlorine test with our tap water, which also resulted in a solid 0 (I didn't trust the phone support of our local water supply company telling me they never used chlorine... but turned out I was skeptical for no reason after all. All other parameters are unchanged compared to the last time. The behavior did not significantly change - it just got less frequent and shifted to the nights. So all in all I would just call it a day and observe further. All parameters I can control seem fine. Thanks again for all your feedback, I am a little more calmed down now 😊 Now enjoy this clown loach showing why they are called clown. I mean, why not chilling upside down... 😁

At first thank you all for your kind replies. 🙂 I will definitely keep this thread updated since the outcome might help others as well in the long term. Behavior didn't change much, except they are reaching the bottom glass and the pile in the middle is already as tall as my hand width. 😅 Sounds fair, I'll keep an eye on it. The confusing thing is, they pretty much ignore the "Tabis" krill food tablets but keep up digging. Not really. It is basically one spot only. Might be a vortex in front of some driftwood there. But the line of algae marks the initial sand height. I'll watch that, thanks. (It was a mix of 2/3 fine sand and 1/3 small gravel below - they just swooshed all the fine sand away 😅) I already called the manufacturer of my new aquarium to make it a bit taller so I can increase the sand layer... just in case 👀

Now just 2 more. It is a sad story with my clown loaches. The one local pet store had fishes for a short time around 2000-2003. They sold me a single clown loach into a 60L aquarium. When I learned that they are in fact not meant to be alone, I bought a bigger aquarium and got more. A proper sized aquarium was not available and they refused to take the loach back... So I did my best to keep up with them. I plan to have around 10 in the new 800L. To be honest, I never used fertilizers. Plants and fish always did fine.

I'll do another 30% change now, just in case. (Did 20% every 2 days after the setup) Could good be ammonia. Since I rebuild everything pretty much unplanned, I surely lost a lot of bacteria in the filter and sand. Also I ordered a proper test kit. Since I live on an island without any pet store for fish supply... it will take some days to arrive. 😞 Thank you all very much. I didn't have any problems in the last at least 15 years therefor I panicked a little.

I am sorry. ... I feel kinda stupid. Just did a quick google lecture ... and I indeed misunderstood. Never had any problems with my aquarium so I am not used to all these parameters and names. I think I don't have a proper way to measure ammonia in that case.

Did a quick test strip test. The camera pics the wet strips color way more saturated than seen with the eye, and even in that case it is far below the "!!" marking. I'm quite sure there is a unit error. 🤔

The test kit measures in mg/l and indicates a level of around 5 mg/l or lower. It is barely noticeable. The scale on the kit says everything below 20 is fine, and at >100 mg/l it is problematic. Not sure how to convert that reading to ppm or something like that. 😞 A little under double the size. A new one is already in planning with the manufacturer with over 800L. I was already planning getting a new one in the future since the loaches grew quite a lot.

Hello, I come here in search for help or advice and opinions towards the behavior of one of my clown loaches. Roughly a week ago I had a hardware failure which pretty much needed me to re build the aquarium entirely. I tried my best to re-use all the materials like sand and plants and keep the beneficial bacteria in the aquarium. Sadly one of my clown loaches didn't make it through the process. I guess at their age well above 20 years it was a little too much stress. Now the remaining loaches show some interesting behavior I didn't see the in the last decade. They move tons of sand and substrate, unearth all the plants and go wild. Now I am worried there is something wrong with the parameters or something. Youtube Video of the new behavior My ideas were: Are they hungry and look desperately for food? Could it be some eye problems? (photo attached, these spots on the skin are all on the glass) Are the parameters wrong and they try to "get somewhere else"? Is it normal and they just explore the new setup? Are they having a problem with the temporary small size? I was unsure if it belongs to "diseases". If so please let me know. Thank you all for your feedback 🙂 Some additional information: Size of the (temporary...) aquarium ~200L NO3 ~5 mg/L NO2 ~0 mg/L GH ~5 °d KH ~6 °d pH ~7.0 Temp. ~27.5°C / 81.5 °F