weather loach

Question
Hello.  Thank you in advance for your time.  I have a 75g tank with community freswhwater fish.  I have 3 weather loaches, 2 of which are fine.  The third has been forming a u-shape and seems to be unable to swim well.  It has been like this for about 3 weeks and now seems to be pale in color, as well.  All of the other residents seem fine.  Thank you for any help you can offer!

Answer
Hello!

Did you recently get your loaches? If they were acquired very recently (within one week), then they might have been sick from the store. If they are new, they might just be taking time to get used to their new surroundings. It's hard to tell without a picture, but if the loach is having trouble swimming, it may be swim bladder disease. Swim Bladder is one of the hardest diseases to treat, since there isn't any extremely effective cures for it. Fortunately, it is not highly contagious. It can be caused by both bacterial and viral infections, or may simply be the result of poor diet.

However, weather loaches do in fact form U-shapes from time to time, because they are so long. however, the abnormal swimming is in fact a problem.

Here are the steps I would take to treat your problem.
1) Perform 20% water changes every 1-2 days until the loach gets better.
2) Vacuum the gravel along with the change.
3) Feed a few fresh or defrosted peas to the loach (make sure the other fish don't get it first)
4)Only feed once a day - once every two days would be nice, until it gets better.
5) You may want to isolate him/her into a separate tank.

To prevent this, I would change at least 20% of the water a week, and feed the loaches a variety of fresh, frozen, and freeze-dried foods, such as brine shrimp, daphnia, bottom feeder pellets, etc.

Here's a link for more info about swim bladder disease: <copy+paste>
http://www.netpets.com/fish/reference/freshref/swimbldr.html

If I'm wrong, and it happens to be something else, try this diagnosis and treatment page:http://www.fishlore.com/Disease.htm

I hope your weather loach gets better.
Good Luck, and happy fishkeeping!
-Nate