--315 days

--Dammit. I hate aquarium dilemmas. I am so attached to my plants, which are flourishing...that I'm having trouble trying to debate how I'm going to get rid of the ich in the tank without hurting the plants. Most ich medication hurts or kills them. And, I'm too lazy-ish to do what this one guy (our normal guy wasn't there today!) said was the only really good way to do it, which was to get a bucket, pull the plants out of the aquarium and put them in the bucket. My problem with that is two-fold (other than the laziness part). (1) If the plants are currently eating all the waste product from the fish and doing well, that means there's good balance. If I take the plants out, guess what grows in its place--f'in algae. I don't want that. (2) What, exactly, is going to feed the plants while they're basically floating in the bucket? Plus, how "deformed" are the plants going to get while floating in the bucket? This just doesn't seem like it's a good option either.

I thought about treating the tank ever so slightly, way under the suggested dose (I have to underdose anyway, because we have tetra, which can't handle the regular dose), and hope that does the trick without killing the plants.

But we have to do something...we lost a Platy last night, and it was, of course, the only male. There goes the possibility of babies (which would become food, I know, but still...).

--Otherwise, go Sox! :)