Tough Day
Got a nasty surprise today. But more on that in a minute.
New actually lfs opened Friday. I bought some raffle tickets and actually won a bottle of Phyto for the SW tank.
USPS misdirected my new nano shrimp light which was supposed to arrive last Friday. So still waiting on that.
Needed to move the 30G Waterbox tank over about 5 inches to allow the stereo surround speakers to do a proper job. Which prompted all water changes except SW, and the store for SW was closed or would have done that one too and picked up my Phyto and bout some new pods.
Spent 45 min on picking algae out of the SW tank instead. Will give the new snails an actual chance to help get rid of it.
Did pws's
7G on the 30G Waterbox
.5G the PRL shrimp 6.6G Cube
Added water to the planted bowls
1 1/3 G water change on the 12G Edge.
1.5 G on the Wine Glass
30G on the 72G
And now the nasty surprise...
Was looking at the (FW) fish in the 80G IM Lagoon tank.
Saw an odd sparkly speckled fish I didn't at first recognize. The light wasn't on yet. Cutting back due to hair algae.
For a split second I wondered if the Endlers mixed with Guppies had made a new kind of coloring / pattern.
Upon further inspection, it wasn't sparkly at all - It was covered in Ich.
This was a very nasty, awful, terrible, crushing realization.
Wouldn't be a huge crushing blow except for the 6 Clown Loaches and one Yoyo Loach.
After strategizing about the problem and looking further found no other fish with Ich spots. But a couple with a bit of a light shadow circle on their body. That is also bad.
Did a ~70G rolling water change. Water out through the bottom FX-5 canister filter (filter off) using suction force inside to get rid of water while I wait until the water is 2 inches low and dump in 5G bucket, 15 of them. Got my work out for sure today...
To capture the Ich covered Endler, I tried to catch with the big Cypress knees in there but no way, took it out and and 3 other DW pieces and all the Hornwort, plus the momma Amazon Sword and the 6 off shoot big babies, and could actually see in there finally.
Tonight the big Clown Loach and the med ones came out of their hidey hole cave and are sometimes swimming around. Honestly I have no idea at all how they all squeeze in there.
I did move a little sand out of the way to allow them better access. But there are 3-4" and 6-8" stones under the top layer next to the really big river stones and DW which make up the Clown cave.
As of this evening there are no additional Ich spots on any other fish that I can see. The other fish looked happy and grateful to be swimming around.
Added a cup-ish of Epsom Salt to help the fish if possible. Tomorrow will try and clean out the FX-5 underneath.
Oh and yesterday got screws with larger type heads (can use my had to remove and tighten now) to allow the cabinet /stand door on and off more conveniently to remove the FX-5 from the center compartment, as the filter can't fit out the space with the door on.
I plan to vac tomorrow the sand in hopes that maybe I will not get all the fish suffering illness.
Treated the Ich speckled Guppy with salt bath and it looked like no spots on her after. She is in a QT container. It caused a bunch of extra stress capturing her in the 80G and, later dipping her. If she makes it through the night, will do another dip and see how the other fish are doing. I expect to see Ich spots on the fish tomorrow.
I am sure the TDS were way high and lack of water change when I got back from the trip. A male was chasing her all over, maybe tipping her over the edge. Pwc was planned to get done but I feel terrible
