oto / danio update 7

Crap. I am a very poor fishkeeper of late.

While the Otos are definitely eating, done with their treatment and have no more visible fungus, Otto now has redness inside the belly. From what I've read this could be internal hemorrhage. Don't know how to treat. Just watch closely hope it will resolve.

Zee died. Noticed just a day ago that he seemed to have either scraped his side, or a small patch of fungus, it was difficult to tell. He slowed down, looked relatively thin, hung in the water just wriggling a little. (Is this what they call shimmying?) I dosed the main tank with fungus guard, but forgot to pull the filter media out. When realized, thought it was old enough (over two or three months) that the carbon might not be active and meds stay in the water? but by nightfall yesterday the water was mostly clear again, and the fish dead. Today did another water change, the normal 25%, pulled the media out and redosed the tank (2/3 of the dosage, which is all I had left). That was a guess, I might have over or under-dosed. Not sure what else to do. I'm down to three fish, and Blip is looking poorly now- hanging still in the water like the others did. So I am expecting to loose him too.

I was able to look closely at Zee after he died, with a magnifying glass- definitely looked like fungus patch on his body. Can't tell if Blip has any- might be a small spot above one eye. But I've been informed that fungus usually attacks a fish that is already weakened by something else. So there's an underlying cause. I still think my water parameters are good. I wonder if they have parasites...?

The Bettas: Flash looks a little better. Pinkie does not. He now has a missing scale and scrapes on one side. What is happening to my poor fish? I never saw this kind of injury on Pinkie before. Gave him dose of salt with water change today.

Realize I need to be more careful with my fishes. Never overfeed. Always have clean hands. I am probably not good enough at keeping contaminants from one tank out of the other- I use the fish net and vacuum hose exclusively on the large tank, the baster for the QT, but often use the same fish buckets and fish cup in both. I do rinse them in scalding hot water but that is probably not enough. Need some aquarium disinfectant dip. Should be more gentle with light-to-dark transitions, and vice versa. It stresses them out to have a sudden switch. Not a good idea to skip the water changes even on the main tank- fresh water is always better for the fishes regardless of how low the Nitrate reading. And I must have too much nutrients in there because of all the algae. Less sunlight. More plants. More suitable fish- I'm changing the lineup in my head- but won't get new fish for quite a while now- must figure out what is killing off my Danios and make sure the tank is no longer infected. I hope the snail doesn't die too.