Dont turn the light off ! :(

M

MrPufferfish

AC Members
Feb 2, 2005
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One of my GSP seems to be scared of the dark !
For the past few years everytime the lights go off, he sometimes dashes
around the tank for a about 1 min !
One day he actually jumped out from a hole in the hood and lucky for
me i was near the tank and saved him ( flated too ) !
I tried changing the timer to an electronic one as these seem a bit quieter and has made a slight improvement but it still happens !

Anyone else with the same problem ?

The tank is well established and water reading are pretty perfect so i cant see
any issues there and the puffer is in exceptional good health !
 
From what I've learned fish don't want the lights off all at once. Maybe have lights on in room when tank light goes out, than after a bit turn room light out. When I had my puffers I never had that problem. I did read recently that this one puffer wouldn't awaken till 8am. He have a cave or something to hide out in at night?
 
Cave !

Hmm, i was thinking last night should i get a cave for him to hide in.
think i will also try a few of those press lights around the tank too and
see if that makes any improvement,
Good advice. Cheers.
 
Yep. It scares fish sometimes to have everything suddenly go dark - just as it does to suddenly turn on the tank lights when the room is dark. Anything you can do to make the change more gradual will be a help. Perhaps leave a small light on in the room, or a small desk light near the tank. Or if you have two lights on the tank, turn one off, wait, then turn off the other.

In the wild, the sun would never just go out like that (at least, we hope not!) so its something that doesn't feel right to fish that use instincts.

You can take precautions when turning the lights on, as well. Since fish don't have eyelids, a sudden light can really be uncomfortable and disorienting. Gradually moving the lights up or down will help either issue. :)
 
My fan dancer goby goes nuts also when the lights are turned off. Try a set of moon glow blue led's which simulte the moon in the tank...it looks so cool.
 
I was having the same problem with my Target and F8. My solution was to hook up my full spectrum flourescent light to a a timer - set to go on at 9am and off at 7pm.

I also installed EL (Electro-Lumination) Wiring in the hood of the tank to simulate moon lighting. I hooked the moon lighting to a second timer set to go on at 6:30pm and off at 4am.

The result is that the lighting never goes on or off suddenly - there's always a transition. My puffers don't freak out any longer.

Tin
 
puffers like to hide. The cave is a good idea, my tank has been much happier with only 2 rocks added to make a little hole for 'em
 
I had that problem with my fish. I ended up having to turn down the lights slowly.
2, 48" Day Light > 1, 48" Day Light > 1, 18" Day Light > 1, 18" Black Light.
The 18" black light runs all night. If the power went out all I would hear was the monos crashing into the sides. So, I would have to light a candle. Then they were calm again.
 
just install moon lighting. I have 1 scat, 2 monos, 2 columbian sharks, 2 parrot cichlids and 2 african cichlids in a 65 gallon tank. I had the same problem until i installed moon lighting on my tank. Use timers and set them to overlap each other so the moon lighting will come on before the regular lighting will go off and the regular lighting will come on before the moon lighting will go off. this should help.
 
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