I recently started up my new 40 gallon tank and dosed the appropriate amount of SafeStart by Tetra, as instructed. I decided to do a fish in cycle and get one juvenile blood parrot, as I hear they are quite hardy. I decided I would do water changes every week and dose more TetraSafe with each water change, and since only one small fish is by himself in a 40 gallon tank, NTS shouldn't hit him too hard. Well I don't know what it is, but something is getting to his behavior. At first when I introduced him yesterday after slow acclimation he explored his pretty empty (for now) open tank. He was always a bit skittish and afraid but after about an hour he found his favorite spot by the heater. He didn't leave the heater at all for the rest of the night and would sometimes hover vertically to fit in between the edge of the tank and the heater. Then at midnight last night I found him lying by his side and not moving his fins, and I thought he was done. Today I woke up to see him hiding behind a rock, looking better than last night. I have dealt with NTS before, when I was less experienced, and I noted that most fish don't "recover" from NTS unless I do a lot of water changes, but I didn't do anything to the water yet because it's only been a few hours since he was introduce in the tank and ammonia can't possibly be that high. I found him lying on his side once for a short period of time but for the rest of the day he's been hanging around near the heater again, sometimes keeping himself vertical so he can fit between the glass and the heater like yesterday. I fed him twice and he ignored the food. IMO he's just very stressed and scared, but my main concern is his food. If he continues to act this stressed eventually he will actually become in critical condition from lack of food intake. I bought a flower pot for him today but he hasn't touched it, he really seems to like the heater, which is strange because all of the water is the same temperature (81F.) I don't know what to do really, someone told me here that I shouldn't be doing pwc while dosing SafeStart even during fish-in cycle. I guess I'll measure water quality later today and make sure but there really can't be any spikes. It's been only 24 hours and he's by himself in a huge tank. He really needs to eat. I fed him pellets too but I still see them, he hasn't touched them.
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May that BRP live a long awesome life and bring ya good luck.
