Fish are all pale...help!!

H

hsherman1986

AC Members
Mar 6, 2006
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So I came home from work tonight, turned the lights on in my fish tank, and noticed that almost all of my fish were really pale, looked almost like there was a white coat on all of them, and most of them were just sitting on the bottom of the tank

Fish include
10 zebra danios
10 neon tetras
8 guppies
6 mollies
6 black neon
4 harlequin rasboras
3 silver hatchet fish
3 lemon tetras
1 ghost shrimpo
1 clown loach

water parameters:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 30
ph 7.0
hardness 120
alkalinity 80
chlorine 0
temp 78*

those parameters are what they have been at for the past month. Everything has stayed stable, i have had no spikes, or drops.

Any ideas? Were they just sleeping, or is it something I need to worry about? Please help, I have never seen them like this before.
 
Did they start acting normally after the lights were on for a while? If so they were probably resting. Many fish lose their color at night. If they are acting normal after the lights are on then I wouldn’t worry about it.
 
yea, they are all out and about and almost back to mormal color now.

It just freaked me out because I had never seem them like that before.
 
Most fish go pale and quiet when the lights are off. It's a survival tactic. A lot of predators come out at night and the less the potential food is seen, the less the chance they will get eaten.

So, they naturally blend in with the dark and don't move around as much.

Most rainbowfish do the exact opposite. They get brightest in color at night and when the lights in the tank come on, it's like a moving rainbow of color :)

Roan
 
Same thing happened to me with my neon tetras. At first I freaked out...I was thinking my fish were getting ready to die but then after just a few minutes they were all brightly colored again.
 
do freshwater fish "wash out" roan?
 
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