Well, Honegger is in his fourth day of hospitalization. On the second day, he developed extremely small white fungal growths on his dorsal and caudal fins, which caused me to instantly up the dose of Maracyn. On the third day, yesterday, the growth was gone. I noticed also that Honegger was moving about the small tank, showing curiosity once again. Even better, he's started eating again and the discoloration that initially alarmed me has receded dramatically. His little teal neon stripe is even beginning to seal. I'm simply amazed that you can actually quarantine and medicate a 1.5" fish and nurse it back to health. When I was a kid, we would have just flushed it.

Since he's healing -- or appears to be healing -- supportive aquarists over at FishProfiles.com believe it's not NTD, but another ailment simply called false NTD. The latter can be arrested and treated with certainty, unlike plain old NTD.

The hospitalization isn't quite over yet. I'm going to give Honegger two full weeks in quarantine before even thinking about reintroducing him to the main tank (which I'll also have to medicate once I'm sure Honegger is fully on the mend).