Does Loud Music / Deep Bass Upset the Fish?

[mound]

Strange question I guess - does cranking a subwoofer, and or having people playing Congas and Electric Bass in the same room or nearby to a large tank (125g, probaby not relevant I'm sure) "upset" the fish? Do they "hear" or just feel vibrations?

 

[lighter]

Yes, they can feel vibrations!

 

[stresco]

Yep, water is actually a better sound conducter than air.

 

[fishfreek]

vibrations is how they hear. In fact vibrations as you know is how you hear. The only difference is its vibrations thru the water vs the air.

The question is how upset will they be. I would say take some visable observation of your tank in a quite period and in a very noisy period. If the fish are acting different in the noisy periods then it would be a sign of irratation.

 

[loganj]

There is also the point that water transmits sound much better than air. Although I cannot back this up with any scientific data, my first instinct would be that it would stress the fish out. JMHO.

 

[justDIY]

i have my fishtank about 3ft from one of my home theater speakers, and haven't noticed them "darting about" or things they normally do when shocked by something loud

but if my upstairs neighbor slams their door, the fish all dart wildly!

perhaps the continous rythmic vibrations from music aren't as shocking as short sudden noises are?

 

[mound]

or maybe it just has to be good music the fishes like to git down and boogie like the rest of us!

 

[Guest]

Last week I was watchin the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense DVD, and really cranked it up for a couple songs. I thought my White Cloud Minnows were gonna jump outta the tank. It may depend on the fish, but those guys did NOT like the subwoofer cranking out the decibels!

 

[fishstixs05]

One thing, if you have any of the knifefish, elephant noses, baby whales, etc., it isn't a good idea to have music on too loud. They use echolocation, and the vibrations from the music will disturb them!
Ben Driscoll

 

[mound]

I have all malawi cichlids, except for a Hap. sp#44 from Lake Victoria

 

[ConanTheLibraia]

Heres a question I asked a while ago about the same topic: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=3291

 

[Guest]

See my recent post on Pleco's & Pavarotti for possible insight to this thread....

 

[alrmc4]

guess i have to talk to hubby about moving his sub he isn't going to like that

 

[Guest]

This is wild - I was watching the Discovery channel and saw how opera affected certain fish. Certain fish have this boney piece in their ear that they attribute part of this phenomenon to. While playing a recording of Luciano Pavarotti, the plecostomus went into a gyroscopic spin - meaning essentially spinning with more than 1 axis (horizontal spinning and vertically spinning kind of). As soon as the opera stopped - so did the pleco's gyroscopic spin. It gets weirder. Then they played Pavarotti backwards, and the pleco again performs the gyroscopic spin - BUT in the opposite direction!! I'm not finished - it only works with male opera singers! Soprano, mezzo-sopranno and alto have NO effect. Yet tenor, baritone and bass DO. Nature never stops suprising us....

 

[ConanTheLibraia]

thats really cool about the pleco "dancing", my bala sharks don't seem to react much when I play drums.

 

[cdawson]

I've done this test before and it does effect the fish, my tetras go nuts when I've got a movie playing loud on the subwoofer. Even so I had to remove the tank from the room.

 

[Zic]

I live in an apartment. I have a ten gallon community tank in my daughter's room. The guy down stairs is an ametuer rapper and ALWAYS has music playing. Before my daughter was born (In December) I thought, "When my child is born I'm gonna have to risk getting shot at to go downstairs and tell the neighbor to turn down his radio." But, the first night she slept in her room, he had his stereo blaring and it didn't bother her ONE BIT! I couldn't believe it!

It doens't seem to bother the fish either. The Mollies have had at least two batches of fry. The Zebra Danios are always moving about and my angel fish usually looks happy if not hungry. So this would seem to support the idea that constant sound doesn't bother them as much as sudden bursts of sound.
Play Reggae and chill dem fishies out, mon!

 

[fishfreek]

On the note about sudden bursts of sound when you watch "finding nemo" they have a great scene when their is a little girl who is banging on the glass and you get the viewpoint of the fish with these loud booming sounds and the entire tank appears to be shaking like its an earthquake.

 

[Guest]

Try playing Pavarotti if you really wanna see 'em dance!

 

[WuRtZLeSs]

Talking Heads Stop Making Sense DVD

Excellent dvd!