Back in the day...
I played bass in one of the bands I was in. 4x15 bottom, 2 ohm, with a warning sticker on the back; sound pressure levels may exceed 120db 10 feet in front of this enclosure. In 5 years I had recones on two of the speakers, 500w of bass head will do that. Guitarist had a pair of 50w Marshall heads, more than slightly worked on, pushing a pair of 4x12 bottoms. Drummer had a double bass kit, really loud metal music. If you aren’t rattling items off of the shelves in the house you really aren’t loud; we had to rig the drummers house.
The drummer also bred Oscars. Right above where we played. It is generally accepted that spawning and breeding fish are pretty content with their environment.
I’ve often thought about that, and have pretty much come to the conclusion that like any other animal fish get acclimated to their environment, as long as the environment is within reason. Take the case if a dog that is raised in the country, and is suddenly moved to a busy, noisy city environment. Not being used to this, the dog will be jumping at every new sight & sound. A dog raised in this environment will think nothing of the daily racket that occurs in a large city 24 hours a day. The dog raised in the country may soon get used to it, some do not.
Having had wild caught fish shipped in from South America, the skittishness seen at first could be equated to the country dog, in that they are both used to quiet surroundings. From my experiences, some fish get used to movement outside the tank after a few days, some take many weeks. This to me is them getting used to outside elements that they were not raised with, and are not familiar with at first. With consistent exposure, the fish usually get acclimated to this new experience, some do not.
In the case of the drummer with the Oscars, they were raised in this environment, and thought nothing of it. I imagine fish not raised in this environment might have a difficult time acclimating to the experience. With young animals of most any species I can think of there is a window where they are receptive to new things, and will not have the fight or flight response associated with adults of the species. This is the reason you can walk right up to a puppy, kitten, or any really young animal & just pick them up, no problem, while doing the same with an adult of that species might end up quite differently. Once that animal matures a bit that window starts to close, they are not as receptive to new things.
While I’ve not had the time to do any sort of test that would be considered scientific concerning this, it might be in the best interest of the fish to start out with younger fish if you want to jack up your electric bill with loud music.
****Edit To Add****
I remembered this topic in the Scientific section after I posted, it will give you a scientific view on this; http
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/221710-sound-vs-fish/
