Fish development

[rockyref]

Hello everyone, I have a controversial question, if a fish in the tank have constantly stress, and by stress I mean he can see his reflection in the glass, but other than that he has a normal and a healthy life. (Eats, swim, no parasites and no bacterial infections) Can he developed normally? (Growth, health, lifespan)

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

what makes you suspect its stressful to see its own reflection? Normally we would judge fish stress by not eating and not swimming and not acting normally, so if you fish is doing all these things normally, then why are you concerned?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Yeah, as long as it’s not killing itself fighting its reflection/getting way too stressed by it, the fish will be fine (high stress alone kills fish slowly unless there’s disease in the tank; then it kills quickly by weakening them so they succumb to any diseases in the tank; low to moderate levels of stress shouldn’t hurt them at all, and high levels of stress should only hurt them after long periods of time).

 

[rockyref]

what makes you suspect its stressful to see its own reflection? Normally we would judge fish stress by not eating and not swimming and not acting normally, so if you fish is doing all these things normally, then why are you concerned?

what makes you suspect its stressful to see its own reflection? Normally we would judge fish stress by not eating and not swimming and not acting normally, so if you fish is doing all these things normally, then why are you concerned?

It is doing all those things normally, but the thing is he gets stress and fights all day with himself, so at what point that stress he makes can hurt the lifespan and health of the fish, at difference of having a really healthy issue or disease…?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Something that might work to get rid of the reflection and eliminate the issue:

Reflection was actually my first thought too - glass shows reflections when there's a substantial difference in the amount of light on both sides (i.e. when one side is light and the other dark, the side with more light will start reflecting). So, if the lights are off outside of the tank but you have moonlighting or something on the inside of the tank, it's possible that the amount of light in the tank is enough to cause reflections on the glass.

I have no idea if this is the problem for your tank, but if it is you could just light up the dark side and the reflection would go away, or you could block the light from hitting the light side and that should get rid of the reflection as well. For it being lighter in the tank and darker out of it, I've seen someone put a white piece of paper on the outside of the their tank to reduce the light difference inside vs. outside, and that successfully eliminated the reflection they were getting; some other suggestions include blocking the light from hitting the glass inside, or putting little LED's around the outside to light it out and decrease the difference in light.

Regardless of if this is what's causing problems for you or not, though, I hope you're able to figure out what's wrong soon - best of luck!

As I mentioned in my initial post, these reflections appear when one side of the glass is brightly lit and the other side is much darker.

So, to get rid of the reflection, try lighting up the outside of the tank and see if that helps. One way you could do this is by running some LED strips around the outside of the tank so that they light up the glass. This thread might give you some more ideas too:

Moorish Idol attacking reflection

Added a Moorish Idol into my tank maybe 3 months ago now, knock on wood he's been great so far and made it through QT like a champ. In the last 2 days though I noticed he's starting to constantly attack the left side of my tank, like adamantly fighting with what I assume is his reflection. I...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[rockyref]

Thanks man! I have been trying since months different things, but none of those fix it. I’ll try what you said!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Thanks man! I have been trying since months different things, but none of those fix it. I’ll try what you said!

Hope it helps!

 

[rockyref]

Although I’ve been lighting up the outside of the tank, but haven’t worked so… where I should put the LED lights as yourself? In the edges of the tank?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Although I’ve been lighting up the outside of the tank, but haven’t worked so… where I should put the LED lights as yourself? In the edges of the tank?

Yeah, basically the outside need to be brighter than the inside to stop the reflections; so find where the reflection is, then light up the outside where that reflection is.

 

[Reefering1]

How many other fish are there in the tank? Maybe he needs some friends to distract and keep him occupied

 

[rockyref]

How many other fish are there in the tank? Maybe he needs some friends to distract and keep him occupied

Yeah… I already tried that, also switching tank. But the real thing for sure is lightning outside/inside. I had a pair of clownfish before in the same tank and they had the same behavior. (Been trying with flow, changing scape, temperature, with BBA, without one, etc)

 

[Reefering1]

How much time are we talking about here, days or months? Perhaps you can move the lights forward and tilt back away from glass, towards center of tank