Why knowing about your fish is important

Averhoeven · May 28, 2019

I bought a tiny little captive bred mandarin yesterday and started him on his TTM journey. When I checked on him earlier in the day he was up high in the water, attached to the side of the container. I thought that was odd for a mandarin, but dismissed it. Later on I checked and he was still near the surface. Just before I went to bed I looked and he was still near the surface and swimming along it almost bobbing his head out. That seemed like a VERY unusual behavior for a mandarin so I inspected things more closely. The thermometer was showing that it was warm, but not terrible at 82 and the air stone was bubbling away. I did think it was weird that the heater light was on when it's set for 78 and it says 82. I decided to stir the water and see how the mandarin responded to a current. And ... The thermometer shot up to 88.4. Well, now I know why he was hanging up top, it was probably the only cool area in there for some reason. I transferred him over to a new tank with a new heater (unfortunately too early to count for a TTM transfer ). And now he's swimming on the bottom like he's supposed to. I thought it was a nice reminder about how knowing normal behaviors and being observant can help. I just hope he does ok and wasn't too cooked already.

HotRocks · May 28, 2019

A fish bobbing his head out of water is generally looking for oxygen.

As the heat increases the oxygenation of the water column is lesser. Good job on making the transfer and hopefully the little guy will be ok. :)

cracker · May 28, 2019

Good catch !

Averhoeven · May 28, 2019

HotRocks said:
A fish bobbing his head out of water is generally looking for oxygen.

As the heat increases the oxygenation of the water column is lesser. Good job on making the transfer and hopefully the little guy will be ok. :)

That was my initial thought, but the stone was fine and honestly, he's so small a 10g tank probably has enough oxygen to last him a month (not really, just hyperbole). Didn't realize the heat and O2 relationship but that does make it make more sense.