• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Stupid Question of the week (or is it?)

Joined
27 Oct 2009
Messages
2,919
Location
Cumbria
Can you brain damage fish? I'll put some meat on the bones, had a heater failure, well actually was human error and my tank plummeted to 10 deg. My Sterbai were all on the bottom dead as far as I can see. Thinking I had nothing to lose I got the tank warmed back up and lo and behold they all came to again.

That was a couple of months ago and all seem well other than previously they were very active fish, shoaling from side to side in the tank but these days they just seem to all gather together and sit in the middle of the tank in one big group. Not even food excites them, the only time they appear active is about quarter of an hour before the lights go of.

Just wondering if I could have damaged the fish in some way?
 
Doubt it'd be brain damage, they'd probably be behaving erratically and and not all the same. Too high CO2 conc maybe, which decreases as photoperiod comes to an end, perhaps explains the increase in activity. Or maybe just chilled :cool:
My Tetras don't seem bothered about food either and just hover around but are given to spurts of activity. They are well acclimated and want for nothing, so why expend energy unnecessarily especially as you get older. Plus my tank has loads of oligochaete worms to feed on as well.
 
Hmm interesting, I don't think co2 is an issue. I hardly use any in this tank, previously they were in a high co2 tank. Maybe just one of them things, I've started putting some food in to coincide with the point that they chirp up a bit but before they were constantly sifting about through the gravel all day. Maybe they don't understand what went on and when I'm about they somehow tie me up psychologically with a disaster. The tank is in my office at work with a roller shutter so perhaps the shutter being shut for them is a sign I'm off which is usually just before lights off. I know that may sound crazy but I think fish remember things, probably have to for their defence mechanism of flight or fight to work. I know it's a helluva lot easier to catch fish that have never seen a net before or for a very long time. If they've recently been netted they hide on the site of it, if they've never been netted sometimes they swim into it just out of curiosity.
 
There is very little information on long term effect of cold shock in fish, so hard to tell.
My bet would be on something not right going on with the tank....especially if you have a soil tank. I have a group of corys that were born in 2012 and spent about 4 years in a soil tank. I was used to seeing them sit around do nothing. Then about 1.5 years ago they went into a sand only tank that has a few mm of sand only, i.e. no organics at the bottom. I've never seen them sitting on one spot since. I don't know if they do at night but anytime I look they're going around like rockets digging the sand and are the most active I've ever seen them.
Perhaps the cold shock affected the health of the micro-fauna in the substrate and in turn the corys are affected. It is likely there was a big die of microbes due to the cold shock and things haven't recovered since.
 
Interesting, its not a soil tank just a low tech with cat litter substrate. I suppose I can only keep an eye on the situation and hope if I have damaged the fauna in the substrate over time it will come back to normal.
 
Back
Top