Hello all,
I haven't posted (or lurked) much here in awhile. But you helped me tremendously with the last bout of ick, and we haven't seen any in 18 months! However...today's a new day.
Our isolation tank had four white-tipped tetras in it, and they were scheduled to move to the big tank in 5 more days. (I hold them in the iso tank for 6 wks. after purchase...since the LAST ick episode taught me well about ick!) This morning, one of the tetras was dead, and the other three had the infamous white spots.
So, I did a 40% water change immediately, throughly vacuumed the gravel, added some aquarium salt, and increased the heat by 2 degrees. (It's a 5 gallon tank, so I understand the total salt to be added is 10 tsp. I dissolved 10 tsp. in some externally-held tank water, added about 1/4 of that mixture, and will added the remainder gradually, over a 24 hour period, or so.)
My concern now is that another tetra is floating upside-down for 10-15 seconds, and then righting itself fow a few minutes, etc., and another tetra appears to be quite aggressive toward the third tetra, who appears the most normal of them all. Is this a function of the ick, playing itself out? Or is this a function of adding even the small amount of salt? (I am trying to do both the salt and the heat very gradually. And the water change, while it was a full 40%, wouldn't normally create either swim bladder problems, listlessness, or aggression, in my experience.)
Your thoughts, please? If the consensus is that the salt is a problem, I will go even more slowly with the salt. But my "gut" is telling me that the tetras were pretty sick upon my noticing the ick (which I did not notice yesterday at feeding time), and I fully expect to lose at least one more of the tetras....
TIA!
Mahma
I haven't posted (or lurked) much here in awhile. But you helped me tremendously with the last bout of ick, and we haven't seen any in 18 months! However...today's a new day.
Our isolation tank had four white-tipped tetras in it, and they were scheduled to move to the big tank in 5 more days. (I hold them in the iso tank for 6 wks. after purchase...since the LAST ick episode taught me well about ick!) This morning, one of the tetras was dead, and the other three had the infamous white spots.
So, I did a 40% water change immediately, throughly vacuumed the gravel, added some aquarium salt, and increased the heat by 2 degrees. (It's a 5 gallon tank, so I understand the total salt to be added is 10 tsp. I dissolved 10 tsp. in some externally-held tank water, added about 1/4 of that mixture, and will added the remainder gradually, over a 24 hour period, or so.)
My concern now is that another tetra is floating upside-down for 10-15 seconds, and then righting itself fow a few minutes, etc., and another tetra appears to be quite aggressive toward the third tetra, who appears the most normal of them all. Is this a function of the ick, playing itself out? Or is this a function of adding even the small amount of salt? (I am trying to do both the salt and the heat very gradually. And the water change, while it was a full 40%, wouldn't normally create either swim bladder problems, listlessness, or aggression, in my experience.)
Your thoughts, please? If the consensus is that the salt is a problem, I will go even more slowly with the salt. But my "gut" is telling me that the tetras were pretty sick upon my noticing the ick (which I did not notice yesterday at feeding time), and I fully expect to lose at least one more of the tetras....
TIA!
Mahma
