angels update 3

The good- everyone is eating well, no signs of stress (except the smaller festvium sometimes shows his stripes). In fact, Shirley went so eagerly for food today I thought she was going to break the surface and bonk her head on the tank lid. White patches on the golden sisters' fins are smaller, but there are more of them. (This is Precious).

Redness under the skin, and Shirley's lip, look unchanged. Treatment round isn't done yet, and I'm glad to see they're tolerating it well so far, but I'm getting pretty anxious about her mouth. 

Festviums:

tomatoes and more-

First pick of cherry tomatoes- just a few- and I ate some straight off the vine before taking this photo.

Big ones are forming fruit now, too- 

and they've all filled the bed splendidly

Zucchini have wowed me. I gave them (and the beets) a compost feed a few days ago, plus several gallons of aquarium wastewater, and they got huge fast. Having the tree gone that used to shade part of the garden helped a lot too, I'm sure.

Opposite end of that bed, the lovage is well over five feet now!

Green beans are filling in around the leaf beet chard- front bed- and behind them is the bed of collards. I pulled the three tatsoi gone to seed a few days ago, some of the pods were ready- drying and beginning to split open.

My green beans to fill in gaps. Going to plant them tomorrow when there's rain due.

angels update 2

Well, they look the same- still a white blot on Shirley's lip,

and white areas on pectoral fins of both young angelfish. The red body marks are showing more:

Miss Beautiful looks fine. If anything, I think the redness she'd had- at base of pectoral fins- has diminished. 

They all have good appetites, eager for food which is encouraging. The younger ones are a lot quicker to grab bites, now. I'm feeding them more lightly, because of the impacted filtration- but still three times a day. Pinch of flake in the morning, fourth of a frozen cube at midday, a sprinkle of cichlid pellets dinnertime. 

I didn't get a good look at the kuhlis just now, but the one I did glimpse looked okay- searching eagerly around on the bottom when I gave them all brine shrimp. Festvums- totally fine. Trumpet snails are climbing the walls, though. That's unusual- and I bet it's because of the filter. I did replace the other airstone today, so flow is maximum now. The glass is still very smudged from algae- I haven't used the magnetic cleaner yet because don't want to stress the fishes anymore right now. Who knows if they'll find a square-shaped thing sweeping across the glass something to freak out about.

loss and gain in the 33

First the good: madagascar lace is sending up a new leaf shoot:

White cloud fry! There's more than I thought. I counted at least ten yesterday. A few are large enough I can make out red color starting on the tail fin, and a sparkle of the bright blue streak. Here's one- left of center in the middle of the leopard vals. So tiny!

My two of the third generation, are almost as big as the other adults, now. They're only slightly smaller and I have to look close to tell them apart. But I lost one of the grown males. Yesterday saw he had an odd swelling low in the belly, directly over the pelvic fins. Few hours later found him floating listlessly in the plants, breathing but not moving otherwise.

I scooped him out of the tank- way too easily- a very bad sign. Looks like something ruptured- internal bleeding. I don't know why or how it happened, but it's not curable. I ended his suffering under a brick in the garden, where his body will now feed my pink clematis. 

I'm sorry, little fish. Your brightness will now merge with the flowers.

paradise fish!

I'm excited to finally have a new paradise fish.

He's so little- here getting acclimated to the QT- 

but already has great colors. 

He's inquisitive, was nipping at things, pulling at the hornwort and moss strands in his tank, ate a bit of daphnia last night and made quick work of some flake this morning. Seems to have settled in very easily.

I just wish I could feel happier about his arrival. My thrill over having a new paradise fish- and I didn't realize how much I'd missed Perry and Laddie until I felt so happy seeing this little guy in the QT tank- is rather dampened by my anxiety over the angels' health in the 55.

The two female guppies that were holding QT cycled, have moved into the tenner with all the others. So now there's two male, and four female guppies in there. Plus a dozen more fry were born two days ago. I think it's overcrowded but the fry will soon be gone, and I'm hoping at some point to re-home the adults, make it a betta tank again . . . 

angels update

I wasn't able to find Furan-2 or General Cure at the LFS. The employee told me those medications have been discontinued- as in, the manufacturer isn't supplying them anymore? I got Kanaplex and Erythromycin. Decided to try using the Erythromycin, even though I know it's effective against fewer fish diseases, because of the redness. Miss Beautiful has for so very long shown this redness at her pectoral fin joints, and sometimes on the edges of the body too, under the skin. Like an inflammation. I treated her before with Kanaplex twice, which didn't clear it up. So I'm going to try the Erythromycin. Also because one of the younger angels is starting to show red streaks, too. 

Good news is Shirley's lip does look better this morning- the spot is smaller-

but she has a second pale patch on her tail fin, now. Probably from getting attacked by her sibling. She's been staying low in a corner-

The gold angel has been very diligent at driving all the other fish here- even the two festivums keep to the far corner now. Precious planes her body horizontal to zoom across the tank and strike at them, one time so virgorously she flipped upside down, which was funny. I'm surprised at how seriously she takes her role as protector- still pretty sure she's female? you can see the breeding tube in this photo. 

Here the redness on edge of body at base of dorsal fin, and a bit at edge of caudal peduncle, too. It's not much yet, but this is how Miss Beautiful's symptoms started . . . 

Yesterday I was surprised at their behavior. The eggs are on the top of the airlift tube, I had to remove that from the filter base to rinse the sponge. I though the angelfish would either attack me, or flee and then eat the eggs after the disturbance. They did neither. When the water level dropped below the eggs, they just stared upward at the spot, fixedly. When I took apart the filter, Miss Beautiful nipped me once, but not very hard, and then they backed off and watched. When I put it all back together, they started tending the eggs again right away- most are gone now, of course, but they remain very intent about it. 

If I'm not mistaken, and Precious is female, I wonder if they'll remain a "pair", and if next time they'll switch roles? 

But I keep dreading I've made a mistake with the treatment. I don't know, of course, if Shirley started improving because I added the medication, or because of the water changes and filter cleaning I've done. I also replaced the air stone in one sponge filter, and flow is immediately better on that side. The other filter needs a new air stone too, but now I don't want to put my hands in the tank until the Erythromycin is cleared out. 

Following what it says on the box, it's day 1: wc and dose medication, day 2: dose medication, day 3: wc and re-dose medication, day 4: dose medication, day 5: wc to finish up. It's the days without water changes that I worry about, because I've read this medicine can also impact the bio-filter, killing off some of the beneficial bacteria. Well, there's an extra sponge in my guppy tank and two in the QT that I could put in here to re-colonize beneficial bacteria after, but that might cause more problems, if I bring pathogens back into the tank (if that male guppy had lymphocystis, and whatever the new fish in QT might have)?

Another thing I did which was maybe mistake, brought a new plant home. Aponogeton bolivianus (or boivinianus? I've seen it spelled both ways and don't know if that's two different plants names or not). I did rinse it a lot, and acclimated it- which personally I think prevents some of the leaf melt with new plants

and then realized I don't have space for it, will need it's own planter basket. I have an empty one, but need to prep the safe-t-sorb substrate. So for now I've dropped it in a corner. The few days it will take to soak the safe-t-sorb in ferts and baking soda, will also give time to finish up the medication treatment in here, and then I'll plant it. A few days sitting bare root won't hurt it, I hope.

Encouraged that my aponogeton capuronii is sprouting a few new leaves! I think the slightly lower temps will be better for the apnoogetons, as long as it's not stressful for my angelfish . . . 

home-grown dinner

Chard today- both swiss chard and leaf-beet variety.

Pulled more carrots- including some of the red 'dragon' ones. 

Edit add: Funny thing, when I started peeling them, they're not red underneath- just regular orange. And two were yellow. All tasted the same. Very sweet when roasted.

Also ate some amaranth 'calaloo' greens in eggs for breakfast. They've been riddled with holes. I thought it was slugs- so numerous my traps weren't getting enough of them. Had a bout of insomnia last night- woke at three am couldn't sleep. So I went out in the garden with a flashlight and found the culprits. Very small pale grey larvae. I think from a beetle because I caught a few of those on the plants too. I removed what larvae I found, squished the beetles, and simply cut a bunch to eat myself, even with the bug holes. Found two more of the larvae when I washed the leaves. Will have to be more diligent on that bed or the bugs will overwhelm the plants.

more fish lip photos

Last night, Foxface looked recovered-

and this morning when I turned on the light to check, I can barely see the spot on his lip. It's almost completely gone.

Shirley is a little better- from the side her lip doesn't look as 'pouty', and the spot on her fin is smaller-

but the white on her lip still concerns me. 

I went through my fish cabinet to see what meds I have on hand. Plenty of aquarium salt. I had Furan-2 but it's long expired (2017). I have some Kanaplex, Erythromycin and API Fungus Cure (victoria green and acriflavine), but not enough for a full dose. Going to the better LFS that's 40 min away, see what else I can get to treat the tank (and maybe they have General Cure, too). I think since some of the other fish have had small wounds/fungus in the past few days, it would be best to treat them all.

Amused to see this happened this morning:

Miss Beautiful hadn't laid eggs in a long time, since I took away her mate.

It's probably the extra feedings, and richer food, that's prompted her to. Hard to give the younger angels three feedings a day without Miss Beautiful getting extra. I've found that half a cube of frozen food is too much- they all get plump bellies and there's still bits floating around the tank (kuhlis are feasting). That's even if I give the tiniest bits in strained slurry to the guppies and minnows. I'm going to thaw just a third or quarter of a cube next time.

fish health

I've done thirty precent water changes today and yesterday. New heater is keeping the tank steady at 76-77° (house is 72° so it is working) I was going to bump it up to 78° but decided not to because some of the fish still have a bit of fungus, and cooler water slows that. Foxface is getting better rapidly- the white on his lip just a spot in the middle now

Hard to see, almost just looks like a highlight from the side- 

He and Rascal have been eating all the snails (except my nerites). So now I have more dead leaves to clean up on wc days (not a big deal) but also more algae growing on the glass (annoying). I think I'll either drop more malaysian trumpet snails in here- they hide at night so more might survive- or get one of those magnet algae cleaner things for the front glass.

Miss Beautiful looks fine- aside from the tear in her tail, which looks smaller so it's healing already

The gold angel, Precious, has a few small pale patches on her tail- fungus?

And the koi angel, Shirley, is the one I'm worried about. The white spot on her lip, looks like she's pouting from the side-

I looked back on pictures I took when I first got her home, and she had white spot on the lip then, so she's had this a while? or it started with stress from the move.

She's now also got a white patch on the left pectoral fin- probably from being roughed around by Miss Beautiful. During the day things seem relatively peaceful in the tank- and Miss Beautiful seems to have accepted Precious. But for some reason at night, when the blue 'moonlight' is on, she relentlessly chases Shirley around the tank. Awkward photo here with reflection in it, but can see the mark on Shirley's fin.

I also tried to get some frontal photos (really like these for the eyes)

Debating if I should put Shirley in quarantine, to give her some medicine . . .