Ever heard of fish missing the sun?

[uscamaro]

I think it happened to me this morning. With the blinds open the sun will shine about 3 hours in the morning into about 1/3 of the tank. After I fed the fish, my Jawfish retreated back to his den for a few minutes, then wandered out to where the sun was shining. I've never seen him make it this far because it was on the complete opposite side of the tank.

So he's on the side of the tank and is going crazy looking into the sun; his mouth opening and making quick, jerking movements at the glass. At first I thought he just forgot how to get back to his den, but it looked as if he wanted to get closer to the sun. I was able to get really close to him and take several pictures and he didn't move; which really made me curious because near his den, he'll barely poke his head out when I'm around.

Stressed? When I thought about that, I immediately checked the water:

Sal: 1.023
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
pH: 8.1

Finally, after about 20minutes of dancing in the sun, he slowly swam back to his cave and everything is back to normal. Since he wasn't tank bred, and I bought him online about 2 hours after they posted new livestock, it looks like he just missed the sun!

 

[Tim Wheatley]

I've seen this before with tank bred fish, freshwater. I actually did it on purpose one morning at first because I wanted to take photos of my fish without flash and the aquarium lighting just wasn't cutting it... So I open the blind (which was normally closed at that time every day) and let the sun shine into the tank. The fish were active and it allowed me to get a much faster shutter speed with my camera than I would have been able to normally. I got some really nice stills out of it. I really wasn't sure whether it was stress at too much light, or that they liked it, I'd probably actually guess they hated it.

 

[uscamaro]

If it was any other fish I'm sure I would've thought the same thing, but my Jawfish is 1 scared little fella. Unless there's brine shrimp in the tank, he doesn't get further than a few inches from his tank, let alone the opposite side. Plus, there were moments when he wasn't swimming frantically and he just seemed so calm and at piece.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Is he normally inquisitive? He could have been trying to see what it was?

 

[uscamaro]

Is he normally inquisitive? He could have been trying to see what it was?

He's usually very cautious about anything but the brine shrimp (he darts after them). Lately though he's been getting more brave and checking out the area around his main den.

When I came home today, he was in the same spot, looked as if he was mesmerized by the sun. As I got closer, I saw that he is in the process of building another den under the LR that's right next to that spot. Either he's moving or making himself a vacation home.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

hahah! Always great when a shy fish makes you feel like you've made him comfortable.