# Redness on Hillstream Loach



## bnash (Aug 26, 2012)

I have a 18 gallon tall freshwater aquarium that I set up about 2 1/2 weeks ago and in the tank is an angelfish, an albino bronze cory, a dwarf gourami, a cuckoo catfish, a freshwater barracuda, and a hillstream loach. My question is concerning my hillstream loach. Starting about 5 days ago he (or she) became very inactive. Yesterday I came home to see that the front half of his white underside has turned a bloody red color and a red spot is visible on his left side where I believe his gill may be. He has not moved very far since then, but he will change positions on the side of the tank every few minutes. After doing some research online, I suspected it might be ammonia poisoning, but he is not displaying any other symptoms besides the redness and lethargy, and none of the other fish are showing any symptoms at all. I have been doing frequent water changes (10-30%) almost every day for over a week to try to get rid of the yellow color of the water that I believe was caused by the driftwood in the aquarium, which makes me think it isn't ammonia poisoning after all. Any suggestions anyone can give me to help heal my fish would be enormously appreciated, as I'm worried he is in pain...


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

Sometimes I hate answering fish health questions because I end up the bearer of bad news. And this is very bad news, as the hillstream loach is the least of your problems. It shows symptoms of a bacterial infection probably brought on by too many fish in a tank that was not cycled. Check out the cycle info elsewhere on the forum.

He may also have been attacked, and the wounds could be infected. Here's a little problem...

Measure your tank along the front. Someone sold you a cuckoo catfish, a nice little foot long fish if it lives to grow. Hey, 16 inches isn't impossible in good conditions. You are using the trade name, and not the Latin name, so I hope the store didn't really sell a cuckoo but slipped you something else smaller, but that's not likely.
It may not grow, depending on what your freshwater barracuda is. It could be any of fifteen or so species, none of which have any relationship to real barracudas. Some are livebearers and most are tetras. Some are peaceful, 4-8 inch shoaling fish (you need 3-6 as a minimum and long large tanks) and some several times that size and needing to be fed a lot of live fish. If it is one of the latter, it may have been trying the loach. 
I've kept the peaceful versions, at five to six inches, in a six foot, 120 gallon. They were nice fish, but there is no guarantee they are what you have, and your tank would be too small even if it were fully cycled. They are miserable alone.

You have been to a very unethical aquarium store. You have also walked into it by not checking info on the fish before you bought, something you should always do. The price of a general fishbook or the time taken to go to a library (the internet is good if you know what you are looking for - books let you leaf through and explore) will save a lot of trouble. Money, too. Cuckoo catfish and barracuda tetras are not cheap where I live. 

I wish I had brought you a solution for your loach (there is none) and good news on your tank, but you are so overstocked a crash is inevitable, and you have fish that cannot survive long in a tank that size. A few corys, a gourami and some non predatory 2 inch tetras would be good, but the mix you have is not going to work.

Sorry...


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