ODD neon tetra behavior

[mayoshow]

You may have heard of "fainting goats"...
I have a planted Fluval Edge with Java moss and fern, anubias nana and some mystery plant that grows like crazy with the stock light kit and no ferts, that I constantly have to trim. I've had the setup for almost a year with zero casualties and I enjoy it a lot!

I keep neon tetras only except for two assassin snails and a few cherry shrimp, and twice now, I've seen what I thought was a dead fish, only to see him revive and be completely normal.

The first time was about 4 months ago, I walked rather quickly into my daughter's room where the tank is kept and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fish DART away. Before leaving the room, I took a look at the aquarium as I always do, and in the top left corner, in the small space between the corner and the bubble sweep magnet, was a neon, upside down, not moving, apparently dead. Saddened and confused, I went to get the net. But by the time I returned, he wasn't there. I did a head count and everyone was accounted for. I then made the correlation between the fish I saw DART and the floater who thankfully came back to life. Apparently, I scared him and he shot off and passed out???... poor little guy!

The second instance was yesterday. I was doing my weekly water change when I saw the same thing in the same spot. I'd head-counted earlier in the day so I was surprised and questioned if I had mistakenly poured untreated water in, but I didn't. After about 45 seconds, as I watched to make sure nothing bad was happening to the rest of my stock, the fish righted himself, swam back and joined the school and was completely normal.

Obviously this is a stress related reaction. Has anyone else seen this before with neons or other species?

Here is my tank today.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[breb]

i had 1 that would play dead like that when he sleeps
or get,s spooked
never found out why

 

[breb]

anyone have know why?

 

[Barliman]

Obviously this is a stress related reaction. Has anyone else seen this before with neons or other species?

I've seen this in neons and cardinals. I don't know if other tetras do it. I think it's a self-defense mechanism, assuming predators won't eat what looks like carrion.

I haven't seen this in my current tank, now that I think of it. Perhaps because its heavily planted and they have places to hide when frightened (they hate it when I use the algae scraper), or maybe because I have a large-enough school (11), that they don't suffer enough stress to trigger the reaction.

I agree, it's a mildly disturbing sight at first glance.

(Just occurred to me: the neons really died, rose again, and now you have a tank full of "The Swimming Dead." )

 

[stevenht]

I hope the 2 glo-lite's I flushed down the toilet 2 days ago, were alive.

One was half eaten by my shrimp so he was definitely dead.

The other was just letting the current take him and he had no color.

Also, I've noticed that when my tank light goes off at night and when I wake up in the morning, my Black Neon Tetras are opaque and have no color to them. Then after feeding them and about 5-10 minutes of light, they get their coloration back.