tenner difference

Yesterday- a day ahead of schedule- Sam's tank got a water change- he was looking poorly. I honestly expect him to die soon- he has been getting listless, sometimes the current pushes him. Lump behind gill/fin is larger. I prepared the kids for possibility of loosing him.

Well, at least the plants in his tank are healthy- I did clean out more staghorn algae and some leaves that had BBA on them- but when done it didn't look like much on the discard plate. I hope they were just still adjusting from recent move. A bit surprised to find high nitrates (maybe because I fed the fish more)- so I didn't dose ferts this week.

The buces look great after removal of those old leaves:

Here they are from another angle (ambient light)- these are mostly 'selena' with 'blue bell' on the far right and 'emerald green' is the rounder one front left.

This one (buce 'isabelle') is probably sprouting a new leaf- but it looks suspiciously like a flower spathe to me

Anubias has a new leaf sprouting

I added a few leaves to the tank- Sam got half a jackfruit and one catappa leaf. Placed behind the driftwood.

And I swear this morning there was a difference. Water test shows no noticeable change in pH and the water isn't tinted. But the fish- suddenly he is sprightly and alert again, coming to the glass to greet me, looking for food, not so weak and disinterested. Is it just the recent wc? or did the leaves really make a difference? (I don't think he will heal, but I can tell he feels better).

Only plant really doing poorly are the floaters. Either the frequent water changes during treatment was hard on it (lack of nutrients) or the medicine itself harmed the plant- spirodela polyrhiza bleached out. However it looks like one leaf of every pair is okay, so I think they will all recover. Hesitant to try another med too soon, but I do want to dose with tetracycline and see if that helps poor Sam.

I cleaned out the patch of rotala this week. Half the stems had small, stunted leaves and ratty looking growth; some of them only on the lower half, I bet the upper portion grew better when tank conditions improved. I cut those all down to the substrate and replanted only the nice tops. Looks better already.