On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 21:49:21 -0800, ~ jan JJsPond.us
wrote:

Unfortunately, one of my weaker fish, who I was treating for fin rot prior
to the down turn in temps this fall, succumbed and I found floating this
morning.

This is a wee bit off topic but your statement there made a memory of
1970 Winter spring up. I had several aquariums in our home and had
caught some local perch and put into a child's swimming pool on a
screened porch with water lillies. They didn't seem to be doing too
well so I carried them back to the lake where I had netted them but
left the pool on the porch with the plants in it. They did so well.
Time marches on ... we had some very large opaline gouramis that came
down with ich. I was going to take that tank down and sterilize it
and put the gouramis in the pool on the porch and treated the water
with salt. The ich was doing well ... growing by leaps and bounds and
the specks were getting larger by the day. We had a family crisis
come up and the fish on the porch were forgotten. It seemed like over
night the cold of winter came about. I really didn't know what to do
about the gouramis as I didn't have a place for them in the house.
And they had looked so bad I just left them. [PLEASE... NO SCREAMING
YET ... the story's not over! ] I would peek at them from time to
time and could see them not floating belly up but not moving very
much. That spring I said I was going to net them, put them in a large
plastic bag and bring them inside where I now had a spare tank. When
I floated them there were no ich spots but they had what appeared to
be cataracts! I let them float in the bag for a very long time until
the water temp was equal to the water in the tank. They looked just
fine except for the eyes and in no time were eating like normal fish.
One morning my 5 year old daughter came running into our bed room
screaming for us to get out of bed and come look. Staggering into the
den we found the fish had no cataracts, no ich and their color was
much better than other gouramis that had stayed in the house all
winter.

Thought you would [Y A W N ! ] enjoy that little tale.