After adding the prazi and .1% salt yesterday, I was worried because it seemed to agitate the butterflies a little. But today they are doing perfectly well! They seemed really curious about my presence when I was near their tub, and they were swimming around energetically all day long. They like to follow one-another around and peck at things; it’s very fun to watch them.
I tested the water and saw there was again some residual ammonia from the tap water that hadn’t been processed by the beneficial bacteria yet (my tap water has 1 ppm ammonia in it). But everything else looked good. In place of doing a water change today, I just added a fresh dose of Prime to keep that ammonia detoxified until the bacteria can take care of it. After that, I brought the salt level up to .2% and the butterflies didn’t even flinch. I’m going to bring the salt level up again to .3% in a few hours. I’ll maintain a salt concentration of .3% for at least 3 weeks to make sure I’ve rid them of as many parasites as possible. At the same time, I’ll be doing 4-6 rounds of prazi which will take care of gill and body flukes. Then QT will be over for them!
Today I fed them Saki-Hikari early in the day and then in the evening they got their first bloodworms. They loved the bloodworms! I was pleased to see the white butterfly ate everything today without spitting anything out. I wonder if she was spitting the food out before because she was being irritated by flukes, which are now greatly reduced in number thanks to the prazi. Or it could have been that she was just a little stressed out still from shipping and being in such a new environment. Either way, she is eating better now, so I’m happy!
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