blote in loatch

[rhonda]

just fount one of me little loatch blown up like a puffer fish .dose he have bloat and what causes it

[fishfingers]

Hi.

Not too sure about the loaches, but baby bristlenose tend to get bloated if you feed them blood worm. In the case of bristlenose, they cannot digest the protein and their intestines pretty much pack up.

[Dead Fish Floating]

Just make sure it hasn't stuffed itself with dry food that has then swelled up.
If thats the case, try soaking the food.
A good natural laxitive is a few shelled peas,
but for loaches I have found a chunk of cucumber on a stailess steel fork
and a chunk of zuccii on a stainless steel forik.
let them chose which one they wanna graze on.
I have always fed my loaches snails,
they are made to eat them so I figure they are prob
important to their diet.
Is the loach still feeding?
If it is you can try medicated food to treat for an internal cause to the bloat.
SOmething like crushed flagyll tablets mixed with a bit of water and dry pellets can do the trick.
But need about 250mg per 50L and 6 days treating in a row, so is the expensive way.
Otherwise it's prob just worms, clown loaches are wild caught
and feed on the hosts (snails) of many trematode worms.
praziquantral and lemanosole (sp?) both seem effective.

I never panic too much with my loaches,
experts at stuffing themselves with food and then playing dead to scare the....  something outta me.

[aquaholic99]

Rhonda,
I am wondering if you are feeding frozen bloodworms or live blackworms or some other high protein diet? Bloat in loaches is usually bacterial although they can get egg bound and also do like to take a gulp of air (loaches can breath through their intestine if oxygen levels are low/water temp high). Bloat is a pretty wide topic so google will help. I dont think suggesting a remedy is  good idea without getting a few basic facts first. Age/Size/Other loaches present? Photo available? Loaches behaviour?

Can I also suggest you use an online  spell check. Lots of great online spell check websites or something like http://www.iespell.com/  which is a free plugin that checks as you type for Internet Explorer. Hope you dont take my suggestions the wrong way.

Winston