Clown loach tattered fin and black/gray spots

[lafetch]

Hello, 

Has anyone experienced clown loaches getting Black/gray spots in the orange strips, or a tattered dorsal fin that just won't heal? 

Here is some background of what I have going on: 

Water parameters: 

• pH    :   7.2
• Nitrates  :  > 20ppm
• Hardness   : 300ppm (very hard)
• Nitrite  :  0ppm
• Ammonia  : > 0.25ppm
• KH/Buffer  : 80ppm
• Water Temperature : 80 degrees F
• I do a 25% water change once a week

I have had this clown loach for 10 years with no issues. In November I noticed his dorsal fin starting to tatter a bit so I treated with Fin and Body Cure and salt for a week, but nothing changed. Around this same time I was cycling a new, bigger tank to move all my fish to, so I moved him first, once it was cycled, to rule out any fin nipping issues with the other fish ( Zebra danios and Blood fin tetra). Once in the new tank he was doing a lot of flashing and seemed pretty stressed, and I noticed the signs of Ich, so I treated him with Ich-x, and that was successful because not too many Ich spots appeared and now there are none. However, he was periodically flashing against the sand and a piece of wood still.

In January, I switched to using Prime as my water conditioner to try to get control of the Ammonia (it has consistently been at about 0.25ppm ever since adding the fish) and to see if this would help with the flashing because maybe it was just irritation from the other water conditioner I was using at the time. This is when the black/gray spots in his orange stripes started showing up - also he seemed to "gray out" pretty often too. I did treat with Maracyn and Ich-X again to see if that would help with the fin issue and the flashing and see if that would help with the black/gray spots. Since that treatment and the switch to Prime he has not been flashing (maybe once or twice in the beginning but it has stopped completely, as far as I have seen) but I'm wondering if these Black/gray spots are from the Prime, or the ammonia in the tank? Also, the tattered dorsal fin is still about the same as in November, so I'm wondering if there could be some underlying disease or just stress.  

I currently have salt in the tank and have for a week now ( 1 Tbsp per 4 gallons) but I'm not seeing any change. 

Let me know if you need more info or have any thoughts about this. 

As a side note, I know ideally a clown loach should be with multiples, but when I got him 10 years ago I had not done any research, I just needed something to take care of snails and my LFS recommended a single clown loach. He has been very active and seemingly happy the whole time I've had him and I worry what adding more clown loaches would do after all this time of him being the lone clown loach, so I have not added more to the tank yet. 

Thank you for reading this very long post :) 

[Colu]

It difficult to tell off your pictures what is going have you add anything new to your tank recently new plants or fish

[lafetch]

The most recent addition to the tank was a piece of drift wood from my local fish store, but the clown loach was already looking spotty and had the tattered fin at that point. 

Here is a picture of how he looked at the beginning of January before he started getting Black/gray spotty - sorry the picture is a bit grainy, I have a fairly old phone. But his orange stripes were much clearer earlier this year. 

Thank you for your thoughts 🙂

[Colu]

You could be deal with a parastic infection with the flashing and grey spots I would treat with paracleanse or general cure just to cover all bases

[lafetch]

Okay, that sounds good. Thank you for your thoughts. I have paracleanse and I was just looking at it today debating whether or not to have that be my next step, so I will definitely be giving that a go starting tomorrow. 

Thanks again 🙂

[Colu]

With paracleanse you will need to do two or three courses of treatment 2 weeks apart to kill the parasites

Edited March 2, 2021 by Colu

[lafetch]

Good to know 🙂 I found the blog post on the aquarium coop site just now about treating for parasites, so I will keep that handy and plan to do three rounds of treatment, just to be thorough.