Well Max has been acting a bit off the past few days. He's been extremely jumpy, he's spent a lot of time swimming into the glass and he won't eat. I can't figure out what is causing his behavior. I've added dithers back to the tank in the form of Drogo and a pair of silver dollars and my water is perfect. I first figured he was flighty because I sold everyone else from the tank but that didn't fix it. I then figured that maybe when I was gone for two weeks the water went to hell, but according to my API Freshwater Master Test Kit, I'm 7.8-0-0-10. The ten in nitrate is explained by a big pothos colony living in a HOB.
The only other thing I figure might be causing his odd behavior is that he's getting ready to cut fresh teeth, as this is a normal behavior pattern before he cuts teeth. The issue I have with this is that he normally cuts teeth every 2-3 months and its only been a month since hes cut teeth last. The behavior pattern fits, except he's been doing it for a week now and normal tooth cutting behavior only lasts 2-3 days.
On the good side however, his dark colors seem to be continuing to develop. The rays in his fins are now clearly black and his dark coloration is hanging on.
Looks like sashimimaster might be on to something when he said his GATF looked different. His fish has black rays, too and is morphologically very similar to mine. Could "black" goliaths have been hiding under our noses all this time? Is there something we're missing from our water that causes the color not to develop?
Fascinating.
Anyhoo, here's a pic of Max from tonight uploaded straight off of the memory card. I didn't even resize it. Note the black fins and how rough his chin looks from his recent odd behavior.
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