How Do Fish Sleep In A Tank? | What Does A Sleeping Fish Look Like?

Bestfish keeping
4 min readMar 18, 2021

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How Do Fish Sleep In A Tank? Observing underwater life, aquarists wonder if the fish are sleeping in the aquarium. It seems that the fish are always awake in the aquarium, do not hibernate. The way fish sleep has its own characteristics, and you need to consider the daytime and twilight activity of pets, settling them together.

The dream of a fish is different from that of a human: the fish does not turn off completely, but slumbers, wakes up at the slightest danger. Therefore, you need to know how fish sleep in an aquarium in order to create comfortable conditions for pets.

Do Fish Sleep?

Looking at floating pets, aquarists doubt whether the fish are sleeping in the aquarium because it seems that they are always cheerful and active. In fact, all the inhabitants of the planet with a developed nervous system need rest, and fish are no exception.

All types of fish have a sleep and wakefulness regime. However, the dream of a fish is different from that of a human. Living in an open aquatic environment has left an imprint on the evolution of fish sleep. Since, in nature, fish are forced to continually be on the lookout to notice a predator in time or grab food, they do not turn off entirely but only doze.

When the fish is asleep, its brain does not go into the deep sleep phase but continues to work. And for the brain cells to rest and recover, the hemispheres work alternately.

Whether fish sleep in an aquarium at night or stay awake in the dark depends on the species. Some species are active during the day, and others prefer to stay awake at night. So, aquarium catfish are active at night, and in the daytime, they can be found in a shaded shelter.

Dolphins are known to be aquatic mammals. However, their brains, like those of fish, can turn off the hemispheres alternately. First, one hemisphere rests for about six hours, then the other for the same amount of time. Therefore, dolphins are always on the lookout, spotting predators in time

Since sleeping fish are stressed when they are disturbed, the optimal conditions for the rest of the pets must be created in the aquarium:

  • Build shaded shelters
  • Place species with the same sleep patterns in the same aquarium
  • Do not turn on the aquarium light when pets are sleeping.

What Does A Sleeping Fish Look Like In a Tank?

Many aquarists have no idea how aquarium fish sleep. They believe that a sleeping pet should have their eyes closed. In reality, the fish has no eyelids. She does not need them because the functions of the eyelids are to preserve moisture and protect the eyes, and in an aquatic environment, water does an excellent job with these functions. Therefore, a fish that wants to rest hides in a shaded place.

You can only understand that a fish is asleep by its behavior. How an aquarium inhabitant sleeps depends on its species. Each species has its own way of sleeping.

How Do Fish Sleep In An Aquarium?

  • Hanging motionless in the water column
  • Lying on the bottom sideways
  • Swimming with the current near the surface of the water
  • Catching on to underwater vegetation
  • Buried in the ground with a belly.

There are also exotic options for how fish sleep. So, a parrotfish, getting ready for bed, produces a slimy mass with special glands, which envelops itself like a cocoon.

Cartilaginous species are the most difficult to sleep. Bony fish have a due to which the sleeping individual hangs in the water column. And cartilaginous fish do not have an air bubble, so they have to sink to the bottom, lie on their side or bury themselves in the ground. For example, catfish do this.

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