Some species play dead to fool other fish, often targeting scavengers as a food source. The Central American cichlid is a perfect example. In other species, though, this behavior might hint at a health issue.
If fish are experiencing acute stress (i.e., gasping up at the surface, lying on the bottom and not moving, or darting around the aquarium), you can be pretty sure that the water has been poisoned in some way. Maybe cleaning sprays got into the aquarium, or something released toxins into the water.
Cichlids have evolved into thousands of different species far quicker than it took apes to evolve into just three species. This fish plays dead in order to attract other fish then eats the fish who come and investigate.
Staying near the water-surface or piping ('gasping' or mouthing for air) Increased respiratory rate or laboured breathing. Flashing (scraping/scratching themselves against objects) Clamped fins (fins held flat against the body).
Goldfish Like to Eat
In doing so, they inadvertently suck in extra air, resulting in added volume to their swim bladder. Additional air in the swim bladder results in a positively buoyant fish, aka a floaty fish.
After the fish dies there is no more DO being ingested and the air in the bladder starts to dissipate, causing the fish to sink to the bottom. After a few days, the internal organs of the dead fish decompose and a gas is formed. This gas causes the fish to once again float.
When a fish is unable to control its depth, or starts swimming sideways, upside side down, or head or tail down, it may have "swim bladder disease." A fish with swim bladder disease can be a troubling sight to see, but it can be treated.
Strange Swimming: When fish are stressed, they often develop odd swimming patterns. If your fish is swimming frantically without going anywhere, crashing at the bottom of his tank, rubbing himself on gravel or rocks, or locking his fins at his side, he may be experiencing significant stress.
Clove oil is a sedative which at high doses, can be used to euthanase small fish. Unlike veterinary anaesthetics, clove oil is readily available from most chemists. Around 0.4ml of clove oil per litre of aquarium water is sufficient to cause death in exposed fish.
Some fish can survive for a few minutes out of water, some for a few hours, and some for even a few months! This mostly depends on the species of fish, the habitat/environment, and how long you fight the fish.
In many cases, the fish isn't actually dead but rather suffering from a problem with their swim bladder due to overfeeding. There are plenty of warnings about overfeeding fish, but many people are unaware of just how easy it is to overfeed.
You can bury fish in the garden although make sure you bury it deep enough to stop foxes digging it up, or cats. If your local fish store has asked to see the corpse keep it in the freezer as dead fish rot and smell very quickly.
It means that they're going to kill the person they sent it to. The saying usually is "he'll sleep with the fishes". You are basically marked or tagged as a dead person.
Listlessness: If your fish seem tired and lethargic, it can be as a result of many factors. One common cause is improper water temperature. If your fish's water is too hot or too cold, they will be very inactive. Check your heater and verify that your aquarium is at the right level.
If you see your fish lying on the substrate, gasping for breath, that could indicate the beginnings of nitrate poisoning, and you'll need to do an immediate water change.
It's pretty easy to tell when fish are sleeping: they lie motionless, often at the bottom or near the surface of the water. They are slow to respond to things going on around them, or may not respond at all (see some sleeping catfish here). If you watch their gills, you'll notice they're breathing very slowly.
Simply cleaning the tank and changing the water may help immediately save your fish. Put your goldfish in a separate tank while cleaning and replacing the water. You should clean the tank once a week to keep it from forming bacteria.
In some cases, mild stress is something your aquarium fish can recover from but, in many cases, it is an early sign of something that can become a major problem. To maintain the health of your aquarium fish, you need to learn how to identify the signs of distress.
A sexual partner who lies flat and unresponsive during sex .
Ways to Reduce Fish Stress
Change water frequently to keep nitrate and ammonia levels low. Try adding water conditioners like API Stress Coat Aquarium Water Conditioner, which is formulated to reduce fish stress by 40% by removing dangerous toxins.
Large water changes that include more than 60% water change, rinsing gravel, cleaning filter media lead to a complete, massive change in the water chemistry. Fishes when put in these new conditions, lead to temperature shock, stress, loss of appetite, and then death.
Throughout the period of adaptation, the fish still prioritizes reacting to the new environment and remains stressed, so its immune system suffers and it is prone to disease. Adaptation normally lasts from four to six weeks.
Fish, like humans, can get “bent” when exposed to rapid changes in pressure during capture. The bends, or decompression sickness, is a syndrome associated with a rapid and extensive reduction in environmental barometric pressure (Philp 1974).
Most fish are slightly denser than water, so sink immediately after death. However, like a drowned human, they become more buoyant over time as bacterial decomposition produces gases inside the body. Usually, enough gas builds up in body cavities to make the corpse float, like an inflated balloon.
"As the fish decomposes, gases fill the body cavity." The belly becomes a guts-filled balloon and the fish floats to the surface. Most of a fish's mass is bone and muscle on its dorsal side, so as the belly balloon rises, fish tend to flip upside down.