Things are looking better

[Litespeed]

This morning all three pictus catfish were swimming on the bottom of the tank and when I fed them they all ate a little something. One had shown no sign of ick except in behavior and makes a pig of himself eating everything. I'm just glad the other two are acting a little better. We still aren't out of the woods yet and I will continue to treat for ick for another three weeks, just to make sure that the parasite cycle is complete done. I thought for sure that the pictus would starve to death before they improved. The white spots are almost complete gone so they are doing better. We are going to get a 10 gallon tank to use as a quarantine tank so when we get new fish we hopefully won't have to go through all this again. Rather then keeping cheap fish in the QT all the time to keep the bio filter going, could we just use fish food to create the ammonia?

[Dave66]

This morning all three pictus catfish were swimming on the bottom of the tank and when I fed them they all ate a little something. One had shown no sign of ick except in behavior and makes a pig of himself eating everything. I'm just glad the other two are acting a little better. We still aren't out of the woods yet and I will continue to treat for ick for another three weeks, just to make sure that the parasite cycle is complete done. I thought for sure that the pictus would starve to death before they improved. The white spots are almost complete gone so they are doing better. We are going to get a 10 gallon tank to use as a quarantine tank so when we get new fish we hopefully won't have to go through all this again. Rather then keeping cheap fish in the QT all the time to keep the bio filter going, could we just use fish food to create the ammonia?

No, speed, not fish food. The organics in the food will decay and rot in the tank. Sextet of plain ole zebra danios is a better option. Also, a sponge filter is a better idea than a power filter in a quarantine tank.

Dave

[Tooch]

I'm glad to hear they are doing better! Congrats!