small update

I have gardening stuff to post- and no time. I've been cleaning up, there were flower pictures, I planted a second set of swiss chard. Tomatoes are still going. For my birthday I splurged on some shrubs for the yard- nandina, hydrangea, rhododendron, one azalea. A tall leggy aster, five mums in varying shades of pink and purple. There are various cuttings on the windowsills, and my daughter brought some new plants home too. I bought a few new (small) plants for my larger aquarium.

But this post is about Oliver. It was supposed to be his last day in the hospital tank. I put him in there with the usual half tank water/half new, some ceramic cubes out of the base of the home tank sponge filter, heater and a handful of plastic plants. Treated with two doses (forty-eight hours apart) of API Fungus Cure (malachite green). He looked okay, even better the first few days- swimming around, picking curiously at stuff on the bare bottom, ate a few fruit flies I caught. Third day in started hanging still in the plants. Fourth day, laying on the bottom. Now appears bloated, colors very washed out. Hard to tell because his stress colors are gray, but I think the fungus is gone. It looks like he is either constipated- which doesn't make much sense as he hadn't eaten in nearly a week now (aside from two fruit flies)- or is getting dropsy. As far as I can tell from reading stuff, this is not curable. It is internal buildup of fluids caused by organ failure. Kidney failure.

Yesterday I did several partial wc to remove the malachite green. He did not look better from that. Sruggling to swim. Listing on his side, sometimes on his back. More bloated and pale. Last night I gave him an epsom salt bath to try and relieve some of the bloat (he is not at all interested in eating peas). Able to get a closer look while he was in the bath (lying on his side the whole time, but still breathing). It looks like he is starting to pinecone. Which means the end.