still in QT

I surprised myself yesterday looking at my tank journal online and realized my festivums have been in QT for twenty days. Before, I'd have been very antsy to get them into the home tank as soon as possible, but I guess I'm getting more relaxed about it- or better at doing a setup so it looks a bit natural/comfortable for the fishes, enjoy watching them, not at all in a rush to see them in the big tank with the angelfish. They finished a second round of Prazipro and I've seen both pooping normal but also find lots of pale debris on the tank floor. I don't know if it's usual mulm pale for some other reason, but I wanted to be sure so going to do a round of General Cure which is supposed to come in the mail today.

Largest festivum, Foxface, has something on his chin. Looks like a skin tag. Could be an external parasite? I've been checking it daily, see if it changes size or anything. No change. This morning I gave Foxface a salt bath, see if that makes it drop off. Hardest part was to catch the fish. I didn't want to terrorize him chasing around with a net. 

So I put my largest net to rest in the tank while I got the bath ready (dissolving the salt). Then sprinkled a bit of flake in the tank, see if I could coax Foxface out of his hiding spot under the heater. Smaller guy, Rascal, wasn't so shy. He was out moving around the net, zipped up to get flake, long before Foxface even poked his nose out to sneak a glance at the food. I had to sprinkle flake bits in three times before Foxface ventured out- so for once the smaller festivum got most of it, ha. When Foxface cautiously moved out of his spot I slid the net in front of his cave, then maneuvered a smaller net in front of him- he darted back straight into the trap.

He tolerated the salt bath well.

I meant to only do five or ten minutes but my timer didn't go off so it was actually fifteen before I started easing the salinity back to normal with tank water. He did show stress marks- I haven't seen him show the mottled striped coloration at all before. With the eye-to-dorsal stripe obscured-

and back, a bit more relaxed-

It was kind of amusing to see him hide from me behind the net when I left it in the bucket- the thing that frightened him most became his only shelter in there!

After I observed for a while in front of the tank. Thing on his chin is smaller, but not gone completely. It's between the mouth and edge of gill plate, on the fish's left. Just a tiny blip now, so small you might wonder how I noticed it at all, but it was quite a bit larger before!

I like this photo where he's flaring -