Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 10:14 am Bored, stressed, or neither?
Hi guys,
I'm mildly concerned about Sedge's behavior recently. When I come home in the afternoon or evening, instead of finding him on the basking dock, I find him somewhat curled up, on the bottom of the tank in the rocks. As soon as he sees me he perks up and swims around and begs- it's not like he is acting lethargic really, I don't think. He is just as happy to eat as ever,and his eyes and face look fine. I thought maybe he is doing a bit of "sit and wait" hunting, because he does like digging in the rocks, but it doesn't really seem like it.
Then I thought maybe he was getting bored in his tank or didn't like some changes to the basking area. So, I made a few new changes to the basking area, which I think he liked even less. Then I moved things on the basking area again, and now he has barely basked in maybe a week.
I put a few of his pellets on land normally, and he goes and grabs them and brings them back in the water. That's really the only time I've seen him on land lately. I'm not sure if I just made things worse by messing with the basking area, because it's not unusual for him to not bask for a few days if I alter too much on the basking area. But he started doing this before the recent changes to the basking area- so I don't think it's just that. I just don't know if I made it worse.
Anyway, I don't know if he's getting bored or stressed because he needs a bigger tank? Or if he is having some reaction to the Prime (see below, I don't see why this would be, the parameters seem pretty similar to before), or if there's something else going on.
He is in a 29 gal (full to the top with ATBA). Water temp is 76-78 and the basking area in the high 90s (with a pretty good gradient, I think). Nitrates can get a bit high, but nothing different than in the past.
Sedge is creeping up on 4 inches, and I would like to upgrade him to a 55 gallon next, but I didn't have any real plans to do it that soon since I don't know where I'm going to be after grad school- in the next year and a half or so. Ideally I would upgrade when I know more about the future.
Other changes are that I started using a python for water changes and I've switched from Reptisafe to Prime. I don't really understand why, but the fish in the tank seemed to react poorly to the past couple water changes- ever since I started using Prime. They got super stressed and the danios hovered by the tank floor. After a little while of keeping Sedge out of the tank, they recovered but Sedge has been eating a couple more fish since then probably because they are weaker.