Hello to the board, I've lurked here for quite some time now and absolutely love the site and it's contributions. Being my first post, I'd like to thank you for taking a look at my thread here however i do have a worrisome situation unfolding with my clown loaches. I have maintained a lightly planted 40 breeder going on three years now, living in the tank from the very beginning are two clown loaches i purchased at under an inch long as well as a bristle nose placo who's just about fully grown at 5''. With pleantfifull bog wood and hiding places the tank also has healthy water wisteria that i propagate around the tank and trim as necessary; two African Tetras two Columbian Tetras and three orange laser cory cats round out the population. Heres where my troubles started however, I owned an asian bumbelbee catfish which grew to a larger size than i expected, the catfish faught vigorously with my dominant clown loach who has grown to a healthy and robust 5''. Both the cat fish and dominant loach endured fin damage at which time i tried treating with garlic extract in shrimp pellets i feed them. I installed a new under gravel hiding cave to accommodate the crowd but still the fighting persisted and so did the loaches fin damage. Around the same time, my slightly smaller of the loach pare began showing signs of fin damage as well, while all my other fish in the tank showed no signs of fin rot or damate my bottom feeders kept getting worse. I decided to donate my territorial bummble bee catfish to a local shop in the hopes my loaches would improve; I cleaned my filters of which i have two, one being a bio wheel filter. After this i did a 90% water change and for the next month did a daily one gallon water change. My clown loaches have overcome ich naturally and grown healthy and happy for three years now however the fin rot/damage is not getting better. the fins are about half their previous condition with off color darker spots in some areas of the fin tips. there are no holes in there fins just a withering of there overall condition and fullness. Both their behavior remains highly active, social even playfull with eachother and their cory tank mates. Both are eating very well, have fantastic color and are fat and happy but the still WORSENING condition of their fins has me very worried. I'm continuing to do daily one gallon water changes being sure to dechlorinate accordingly and my water parameters are nearly perfect with nitrates at 10ppm. my ph is around 7.0-7.4 depending on the size of my water changes. CAN SOMEONE OFFER ADVICE? thank you for reading.
--Anthony
--Anthony
