Tag Archives: food

Think like a fish. The best way to keep an animal like a fish healthy is to think like one. We are after all very distant relatives of fish (if you believe Darwin) so we should have some sort of understanding of the way they feel.  Unfortunately, we don’t. We don’t see the way fish see, we don’t feel the way fish feel, and we also don’t eat the way fish eat.  Humans, as air breathing animals living on a flat surface, only have to be concerned about going forward, backward and from side to side.  Fish on the other hand add up and down.  That “up and down” movement not only comes into play while swimming around aimlessly but also hunting and being hunted.  At a moment’s notice a fish must determine which way to go to evade a predator.  It has many choices and its tiny brain determines this effortlessly. Fish also can “feel” things from a distance.  Some call this “remote feel” or “remote senses”.  All real fish have a thin line starting from their head and running down their sides to their taisl.  This “lateral line” is directly connected to a fish’s brain and allows the fish to “feel” objects all around and even behind it.  That’s why it is difficult to catch a fish with a net, even with the lights out.  Most fish can feel the “echo” of water pressure bouncing off an object similar to how sonar works and many fish can sense the electric field created by the muscles of other animals.  Sharks are experts at this and hammer head shark, with the large sensory organ across their wide head are the masters. Many of the fish we commonly keep can dive into a coral head without getting a scratch and some fish can hunt in complete darkness.  If a fish loses an eye, it barely notices this would-be disability and gets on with its life like nothing happened. Fish also do not bang into the glass of our tanks even though from their perspective they cannot see it, as they are looking straight through it as we are from the outside.  Even in pitch darkness they will not hit the glass.  This sense in fish is much more important than sight. Food for our fish is a major concern for us as aquarists and we strive to give our animals the best diet humanly possible, but fish are not human. … More: