Hello,
I recently moved house including my tank. Since then, my humu triggerfish is extremely stressed and I just can't figure out what's bothering him. This was a relaxed and well adjusted fish, before.
Water parameters are fine and not the cause, I've been testing every day. The second fish in the tank, a lawnmower blenny, also shows no signs of stress.
He's eating.
But as soon as I turn on the lights, either within the tank or increase the ambient of the room (i.e. open blinds), he starts glass surfing and is visibly stressed (they turn pale when stressed).
Since it's so much tied to light, my suspicion was *something* is creating reflections that freaks him out. This is a territorial fish after all. But I just wouldn't know what and why all of a sudden. It's the same tank as before, I tried to put the rocks back exactly as before as much as possible. It's away from windows but just in case, I closed all blinds and even covered one side with a blanket for now.
I considered whether something outside the tank is bothering him - the room is a little bit of a messy storage room still because we just didn't have the time to clean everything up, yet. But nothing struck me as obvious.
I thought maybe he just needs time to adjust to the new scenery outside his tank. But we're coming up to two weeks in the new house and there's been no change. If anything, I feel like it's getting worse, now he even stays pale'ish when the lights are out -- I genuinely fear he's getting sick
I'm at a loss, so is my friend who's cared for humus for years.
I keep wondering whether I should just keep the lights on and have him work through this on his own, but seeing how he freaks out like that had me so worried the stress would cause him to get sick (or hurt himself - he's even bumping into stuff when he's frantically swimming like that).
Is there anything I can do to help him? I feel so helpless watching him suffer like this.
I recently moved house including my tank. Since then, my humu triggerfish is extremely stressed and I just can't figure out what's bothering him. This was a relaxed and well adjusted fish, before.
Water parameters are fine and not the cause, I've been testing every day. The second fish in the tank, a lawnmower blenny, also shows no signs of stress.
He's eating.
But as soon as I turn on the lights, either within the tank or increase the ambient of the room (i.e. open blinds), he starts glass surfing and is visibly stressed (they turn pale when stressed).
Since it's so much tied to light, my suspicion was *something* is creating reflections that freaks him out. This is a territorial fish after all. But I just wouldn't know what and why all of a sudden. It's the same tank as before, I tried to put the rocks back exactly as before as much as possible. It's away from windows but just in case, I closed all blinds and even covered one side with a blanket for now.
I considered whether something outside the tank is bothering him - the room is a little bit of a messy storage room still because we just didn't have the time to clean everything up, yet. But nothing struck me as obvious.
I thought maybe he just needs time to adjust to the new scenery outside his tank. But we're coming up to two weeks in the new house and there's been no change. If anything, I feel like it's getting worse, now he even stays pale'ish when the lights are out -- I genuinely fear he's getting sick
I'm at a loss, so is my friend who's cared for humus for years.
I keep wondering whether I should just keep the lights on and have him work through this on his own, but seeing how he freaks out like that had me so worried the stress would cause him to get sick (or hurt himself - he's even bumping into stuff when he's frantically swimming like that).
Is there anything I can do to help him? I feel so helpless watching him suffer like this.
