rash move

into the home tank after only six days in quarantine. Yeah, probably not wise. But it seemed like the best decision considering. Here's why: I realized recently that my plastic tub standing in for a QT tank holds only four gallons, not five. That's very small. And it's difficult to keep it stable- not stress I want new fish dealing with. First night home the new Otos cleaned the algae off all the rocks I gave them, looked alert and content. Gave zucchini, that seemed to go well too. I'd been siphoning out waste and doing a small partial water change every morning, but on third day they were listless and somewhat pinched. Not eating. I tested the water- to my alarm found Ammonia 0.50 and Nitrite almost 0.25. Not terrible, I guess the filter didn't get established as well as I hoped. Did a 30% wc, tested water again this morning and both levels have gone up. I don't want them going through a cycle in the small tank, so figured it was better to put them in the home one.

They perked up right away. They're really more robust-looking fish, a third again as large as Sparky (here a picture of the little Oto next to one of the new big ones).

But this morning one of the new fish has a fungus patch on its right side. You can see it here. His tail tends to fall limply to the side when he's resting as well.

I dosed the main tank with Primafix this time. Supposed to be harmless to snails and plants. Hopeful. Had to remove carbon from the filter, but didn't want to disrupt the biological filter too much as I trimmed quite a bit of plants with the water change- edges all going brown, especially on the Aponogeton

(but its new leaves growing back fast and look just lovely so I'm not too worried- all the other new plants growing baby leaves now too)

so I took the trouble to cut open the filter and empty out the carbon, leaving the floss pad with all its nice brown biological gunk on it. That was a small chore! I've left the QT tank still running, feeding it w/pinch of fish food every day- hoping to get the bacteria on sponge filter built up enough I can use it again...

So- here's a few more pictures I got of the freckled Otocinclus. They sure are nice looking fish. Very busy scraping algae off the glass- nice fat round bellies. I really hope they pull through and the afflicted recovers. I'm thinking of calling them Lips (shape of tail blot), Buster and Algie, but not assigning definite identities until I can tell them apart well, and they make it through the risky period.