waking up the fish…

[Magnum Man34 149]

I’ve posted before that Inoften sit and watch my tank lights begin to come on, and thus watch how my fish react at 1st light… it’s interesting the differences, so are wide awake right away, others sleep in, even over an hour after the lights are at full… my tetra tank, is one of the most interesting to watch wake up, if nothing else, because of the diversity in that tank… some species seem to take their “make-up” off at bed time, and begin to color up, after they are swimming around… this morning the African tank was void of cichlids at 1st light… the tetras were hanging mid tank, but the cichlids go find someplace to sleep… I have a large peace lily growing out of that tank, with a very large root ball, that goes fully to the bottom of the 24 inch deep tank… I was kind of surprised to see the Hemichromis exsul, each made a nest on that root ball, and when they came out 10-15 minutes after the 1st lights began coming on, they were obviously refreshed, as they came out in their brightest colors, almost glowing… while the rummy nose tetras wake up almost silver, with no red on their face… I’m not really learning anything, just enjoying the difference in the fish…

 

[bgarthe34 52]

I notice a huge difference when the lights go on from a totally dark fish room compared to when some ambient light is present. I currently allow a bit of diffused ambient light in the room until the light timers click on. I also have a small blue light facing the wall at night when the aquarium lights are off so that there is always a tad of visibility for the fish. I started this in my discus days because tanks of frantic discus fish hitting the glass swimming in a panic is not a pretty sight or good for the fish.

 

[emeraldking14 65]

Most of my fish are just like me, it will take about half a minute before they notice that the lights are on. And they'll start to come out of their rest time. Most of them are on the bottom of the tank during darkness (even I have woken up on the floor a couple of times...).