Fish scared of ornament!

[sgreenhow]

Hi,

Anybody heard of fish (specifically freshwater angel fish) being scared of a tank ornament? Late this afternoon we placed a large piece of drift wood in our 25 Gal tank. We noticed this evening the two fish glued on the opposite side of the tank from the drift wood- so much so, they ignored flakes of food placed deliberately on the 'bad side'. They definatly noticed the food- and we've never seen these fish pass up food before.

Regards,

Sean

 

[sgreenhow]

Hi,

Well after over 24 hours we gave up on the ornament. The larger Angel fish was still really scared of it -so much so he/she would only eat if the food was very close to the lhs of the tank. The smaller was braver, but clearly taking its queues from the larger. Within minutes of taking the wood out both angel fish were hapily swimming about -adding more flakes helped in this process as the large one was initially acting as if the 'dangerous' wood would reappear!

Now what to do with the drift wood - Ah I can use it on a fire to barbacue a fish ..) ..)

Sean

 

[Len]

Hehe. I've never seen a fish scared of driftwood It might make for a good smoking wood in a BBQ

 

[Anonymous]

Sure sounds like there was some sort of toxin in the driftwood.

 

[sgreenhow]

Driftwood came from an Aquarium shop - hopefully they are not selling dodgy stuff! Also any toxins would rapidly equiliberate (esp in a 25 gal tank), so it seems unlikely that the fish would know the wood was the cause of the problem - unless I've unusually bright fish ..)

Sean

 

[Anonymous]

Sure sounds like there was some sort of toxin in the driftwood.

a toxin that only stayed in proximity to the wood ? :lol:



it's most likely just a reaction to a new 'marker' in the tank-and if you would have been more patient, the 'fright' behavior would have gone away, eventually