10th Month Update – My Flowerhorn’s Hump (Kok) Shrunk

There were 3 main things that caused his hump to shrink. The first reason was the Amano larvae tank. The light was on for 18 hours a day to grow algae. The lighting schedule was too long and Pollock didn’t get enough sleep. He was even taking naps during the day. He usually never sleeps when his tank light is on. I changed the lighting schedule so that he would get around 8 hours of complete darkness. Second reason was he was seeing his own reflection on the overflow wall. This has never happened before, but for some reason, the summer morning sunlight angle was just perfect that the ambient light caused a very faint reflection of him on the black overflow wall. The overflow is made of foamex sheets on purpose, not acrylic, b/c I knew that acrylic can show reflections much better. But I guess he could still make out his reflection. He attacked the wall with full force. I could hear the banging from far away. This only happened in the morning, and never any other time. This took a few days to figure out what was happening. I changed his lighting schedule so that his tank light didn’t come on until noon. I also left the blinds closed in the morning. Lastly, the temps reached quite high a few times. Flowerhorns can handle high temps perfectly fine, but at higher temps, bad bacteria could grow much faster in the tank. I’m keeping the AC on even during the day when no one’s home. I was quite worried b/c usually shrinking of the hump is a sign of illness or internal parasites. In this case, it was stress caused by lack of sleep, fighting his own reflection(an intruder), and fluctuating temps. Some of the causes that might shrink a flowerhorn’s hump: Bad water quality Illness from internal parasites or infections Malnutrition Stress Lack of sleep High fluctuation in temperature The Amano tank is working ok. The larvae are surviving so far. I’ll show more in detail in the next video. I don’t know for sure it’ll work. I had to shave our cat Curry b/c she had been coughing up hairball way too often. She is brushed every day, but it still didn’t help. After shaving her, she hasn’t thrown up anything in over a week. Her hair dries super-fast after a bath, too. Her hair was cut 9mm (1/3 inch) in length. Panasonic shaver I used This shaver is for people, but it works better than pet shaver that I have. Foods shown in this video: Hikari Sinking Cichlid Gold (medium size) Ocean Free Ever Red Freeze Dried Earthworms Tetra Sun Dried Anchovies Other foods that I fed him at one time or another: Freeze Dried River Shrimp Freeze Dried Crickets Freeze Dried Grasshoppers Freeze Dried Krill Freeze dried MIX Freeze Dried Mealworms Freeze Dried Mealworms 2 Music: Nocturne in B flat minor, Op. 9 no. 1