Sounds about right from what I remember about how quickly they grew, so judging from that, they've probably just celebrated or are just about to celebrate they're 6th hatchday..
Thanks heaps... Again.
Is This Normal? I Don't Think It Is...
- Thread starter Kittiee Katt
- Start date
Thanks heaps... Again.
Quick update on how she's going. We was hoping to put her in the big tank this weekend but her face hasn't healed as much as I'd like, so we're going to give her another couple of weeks. But she's making progress.
A quick review:
What she looked like when we got her
What she looks like today
Not the best pictures (its hard photographing a 3-4 inch fish in a 2ft tank) but as you can see she's put a bit of weight on. Can anyone suggest anything to help her face heal? I'm kind of limited with water changes atm and can only change the amount I can catch in buckets, and that needs to be shared over 5 tanks. So anything else I can do for her would be great. Thanks.
A quick review:
What she looked like when we got her
What she looks like today
Not the best pictures (its hard photographing a 3-4 inch fish in a 2ft tank) but as you can see she's put a bit of weight on. Can anyone suggest anything to help her face heal? I'm kind of limited with water changes atm and can only change the amount I can catch in buckets, and that needs to be shared over 5 tanks. So anything else I can do for her would be great. Thanks.
You can add salt. That should help her face heal. Salt is good if a fish has an injury because it lowers the risk of an infection.
I add aquasonic tropical salts to my water changes so there's already some salt in there, and it says on the container not to add more salt after adding that unless you can measure the salinity of the tank and know what you're doing, which I can't, and I kinda don't.. Haha.
Here's the container:
Ingredients are (in order from the container): sodium chloride, magnesium sulphate, calcium sulphate, potassium chloride, potassium bromide, strontium chloride, sodium biphosphate, sodium thiosulphate, methylene blue. Recomended dosing is one leveled teaspoon per 15ltrs, but I'm lazy with my math and normally round it to one teaspoon per 20ltrs.
The guy at my favorite lfs recommended it to me when I asked him why his tanks all look crystal clear and his fish look great. I use it in all of my tanks minus my goldfish tank, not sure why now that I think about it... Maybe the "tropical" on the container subconsciously stops me haha.
And a blurry shot of the back, for S&G's
Magnesium sulfate is epsom salt. Epsom salt baths are commonly used to treat dropsy. You can use sea salt, but just make sure does not contain any iodine. Iodine kills fish. Is she in a QT tank? When treating a fish in a QT tank, you want to aim for 0.36% salinity.
Yeah, she's in qt until I'm happy with how her face recovers. The container says "Use with new aquarium water when starting up or doing a water change. It will raise the salinity (NaCl) by 130ppm. Further addition of salt is not recommended." How do I convert % to ppm? Lol
Post Script: because of my bodgy math it wouldn't quite raise the salinity as much as it says on the container..
Post Script: because of my bodgy math it wouldn't quite raise the salinity as much as it says on the container..
So, some sad news... I didn't cover the tank properly before we went to bed on Thursday and she must of jumped out of the tank, I found her on the floor Friday morning barely breathing with little puncture wounds in her where my cats must have had a taste test 
I felt so horrible when I seen her, I rushed and put her back in the tank, done a 30% water change but it was no good, two hours later she was gone.
Now, heres where I messed up; normally I leave the door to the spare room (where the qt tanks are) closed, but the batteries in my spongebob lamp died so I thought I'd leave the door open so that the light from the hallway could creep in.. Bad idea. I can't say for sure but I feel like she may have done better if she'd not been nibbled on. Lesson learned: fish are better off in the dark than accessible to cats.
I felt so horrible when I seen her, I rushed and put her back in the tank, done a 30% water change but it was no good, two hours later she was gone. Now, heres where I messed up; normally I leave the door to the spare room (where the qt tanks are) closed, but the batteries in my spongebob lamp died so I thought I'd leave the door open so that the light from the hallway could creep in.. Bad idea. I can't say for sure but I feel like she may have done better if she'd not been nibbled on.
Lesson learned: fish are better off in the dark than accessible to cats.