fish report 6

The good news: female barb is not dead. Decay seems to have halted- I got more aggressive with her treatment, doing water changes twice a day, melafix dose and salt each time. Salt back to 1/2 tsp per gallon for her. The tail has not gotten any shorter in the past two days, although it still looks inflamed. She's still eating, hiding less. I hope might be turnaround.

Also: my plants in the 20 gal seem to be doing better. All of them have new growth. Even the rotala is looking greener, leaves getting larger. Most of the aponogeton have new shoots coming up. I think I am finally on the right track for them. Still some algae, but it seems to be slowing down.

Bad news: I saw one or two of the platies flashing again last night.

I sat in front of the tank for twenty minutes watching, and saw them flash several times. Noticed it because I saw one moving deliberately near the airline, eyeing it sideways. I thought the fish was going to eat some algae off- it's funny when they do this- the lips stretch out and smack on the surface like a kiss. But instead the fish twitched its body forcefully against the line. With repeats. My stomach sank. I watched all the fishes and only saw the few platies do this.

I have begun feeding them garlic- supposed to boost their immune system and can prevent the parasites from attaching to the fish. I soaked the freeze-dried bloodworms in garlic juice yesterday, soaked betta bites in it today. The fish love it. Eat eagerly. Tomorrow will soak zucchini in it... flakes I think would be too messy.

In the morning checked on them again, haven't seen any more flashing, no sign of spots either but I bumped the temperature back up 86-87° and am gradually adding salt back in as well. It could take a day or two for the spots to show. I am glad I took meticulous records on paper, I was able to look at how much salt was added in the beginning, how much put back for water changes, how much concentration lowered when I did the wc without salt recently, to calculate out the amount of salt that's still in there. I figure it had 1 tsp of salt left in the tank, so I planned to add back in 4 tsp to get the concentration at 1/4 tsp per gallon today, then add more to raise it back to 1/2 tsp per gallon. Pinkie looking stressed after I had dissolved and added in only 1 more tsp (hiding under his log) and the barbs hanging out near the substrate again, so I've held off putting in the rest of the salt dose. Will do it very gradually, only a little bit at a time when they look more recovered.

Maybe they are reacting to the plant removal. Because the tank also had too much nitrate- it was 30-40 yesterday when I tested. Today I gently rinsed out the filter media, did a 25% wc and also trimmed some leaves off. So much new growth, the older leaves have lots of algae and decay. I wasn't sure of the best approach here- removing decaying leaves will help lower nitrate levels, but it also takes away plant mass which is eating up nitrate. Some of the leaves still looked healthy on the undersides, just the top mottled with algae. I took out the worst ones. When new growth has increased I'll take out more old foliage. The newer aponogeton and java fern leaves don't seem to be collecting algae as quickly as before, so I hope the plants are getting healthier now to out-compete the simpler life form.

Nitrates are back to 20 again, but maybe the fishes feel shy and exposed, since I took out many large leaves.

I did not dose with liquid plant food today. Holding off on putting in root tabs, too. Don't want to change too much at once. Try one little thing at a time, see how it goes...  But I think the watersprite at least needs it- this plant is doing worst, even though it keeps putting out baby leaves, the stems rot away (smothered by algae?) before they reach the surface, not growing roots well either.

Some pieces broke off and I let them float to see if they would do better that way, but the platies have nibbled off all the feeder roots, so I think it will die.