CrashCourse
Aquarium Advice Activist
Days like today just make me want to throw in the towel.
When I started my 10 gallon, I made just about every mistake I could have, and spent months trying to fix it, which eventually ended up with me upgrading to a 20L because my 10 was seriously overstocked and I couldn't get it to cycle for the life of me. For a while, I had both the 10 and 20 until I recently upgraded the 10 to a 29 that was given to me. The 10, I planned to keep for a hospital/QT tank.
Long story short, I've been battling some sort of tank ailment more often than not for MONTHS.
Just when it seems like everyone is finally settled and happy, I find a couple of ick spots on my angel's tail. No big deal, I've done this before. Immediately bump up the temperature, toss in some ich-attack. A day or two later, he's still got some spots, but it's not bad, and no one else has them. Figure it just takes time. He got a little worse before he got better, which wasn't too surprising. Last night he was down to 2 spots. Came home today expecting them to be gone, and instead he's covered, and now the other fish have a few spots too. I'm keeping the tank around 82-83, since that worked for me in the past, and I'm afraid of overheating the snail and the cory fry still in the breeder box. I'd planned to move the fry into a tank with the new eggs, but I don't want to infect that tank. Now I'm frustrated and trying to figure out what to do with a treatment resistant strain of ich before it kills all my fish.
Meanwhile in the 20, which has been doing great for a little while, I have an orange glofish that has looked full of eggs for weeks. I've read they can hold on to them until they feel the conditions are right, so I've been keeping an eye in her, but not too concerned. Doing my weekly water change , I see she looks bigger, ready to burst, and also looks like she has bruises and a white-ish patch of flaky-looking scales on her back. No idea what it could be. Parasites maybe? Internal bleeding? She immediately went into the hospital tank (that I was going to use for the fry), and I've been watching the 20 like a hawk to see if anyone else is showing symptoms. (Not so far).
And just as icing on the cake, when I set up the 2 gallon fry tank, I was halfway through before I realized I was out of outlets. I had to unplug the fan I sleep with every night just to be able to give them a bubbler and a heater that I'm not even sure is working right. A small concession, but my apartment is now sweater-weather just so I can sleep at night. Haha. And I just can't bring myself to just dump the eggs.
I'm just so tired of one problem after another.
When I started my 10 gallon, I made just about every mistake I could have, and spent months trying to fix it, which eventually ended up with me upgrading to a 20L because my 10 was seriously overstocked and I couldn't get it to cycle for the life of me. For a while, I had both the 10 and 20 until I recently upgraded the 10 to a 29 that was given to me. The 10, I planned to keep for a hospital/QT tank.
Long story short, I've been battling some sort of tank ailment more often than not for MONTHS.
Just when it seems like everyone is finally settled and happy, I find a couple of ick spots on my angel's tail. No big deal, I've done this before. Immediately bump up the temperature, toss in some ich-attack. A day or two later, he's still got some spots, but it's not bad, and no one else has them. Figure it just takes time. He got a little worse before he got better, which wasn't too surprising. Last night he was down to 2 spots. Came home today expecting them to be gone, and instead he's covered, and now the other fish have a few spots too. I'm keeping the tank around 82-83, since that worked for me in the past, and I'm afraid of overheating the snail and the cory fry still in the breeder box. I'd planned to move the fry into a tank with the new eggs, but I don't want to infect that tank. Now I'm frustrated and trying to figure out what to do with a treatment resistant strain of ich before it kills all my fish.
Meanwhile in the 20, which has been doing great for a little while, I have an orange glofish that has looked full of eggs for weeks. I've read they can hold on to them until they feel the conditions are right, so I've been keeping an eye in her, but not too concerned. Doing my weekly water change , I see she looks bigger, ready to burst, and also looks like she has bruises and a white-ish patch of flaky-looking scales on her back. No idea what it could be. Parasites maybe? Internal bleeding? She immediately went into the hospital tank (that I was going to use for the fry), and I've been watching the 20 like a hawk to see if anyone else is showing symptoms. (Not so far).
And just as icing on the cake, when I set up the 2 gallon fry tank, I was halfway through before I realized I was out of outlets. I had to unplug the fan I sleep with every night just to be able to give them a bubbler and a heater that I'm not even sure is working right. A small concession, but my apartment is now sweater-weather just so I can sleep at night. Haha. And I just can't bring myself to just dump the eggs.
I'm just so tired of one problem after another.