# Harlequins playing dead



## justjason88 (9 Oct 2012)

During a water change about 3 weeks ago something very weird happened. I usually siphon out 4-5 buckets of water which is roughly 35-45% of the water. After i siphoned out the 5th bucket 3 out of the 6 harlequins immediately and simultaneously turned upside down and laid on the substrate. I've never seen this happen before and it's the weirdest thing to watch. The other 3 stayed schoaling while these 3 laid on the bottom and were moving slightly. After about 1-2 minutes they 1 by 1 gradually turned the right way up. 2 re joined the schoal and 1 stayed by itself for a while. Since then i haven't seen any other weird behaviour. Any ideas what the hell this is?


























Jason


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## nry (9 Oct 2012)

Shock perhaps?  Never saw that when I had some of those, nor with any other fish.


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## Ady34 (9 Oct 2012)

are you injecting c02....if so its probably too high, if not ive no idea!


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## Ian Holdich (9 Oct 2012)

i have seen Tetras do this when they are caught in the shops...you always think there's a floater in there, but then they bring themselves back. I'm sure it's a survival technique. I have never seen it in a settled tank though.


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## justjason88 (9 Oct 2012)

yeah im injecting co2 and did the WC around 10pm when the CO2 stops before lights out at 12pm


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## Ady34 (9 Oct 2012)

Very similar routine to what i used to do and my Harlequins used to do it occasionally too, i always put it down to c02....it did seem to be at water change time though, maybe something to do with the filters going off and high levels of c02? No other fish did this though.???
Maybe as Ian said its a play dead survival technique brought about by some stress factors like at water change time, may have nothing to do with c02...


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## Westyggx (9 Oct 2012)

Funny you should post this as recently my harlequins are acting crazy, when I feed them 1 or 2 of them zip up to the food and then crash back down into the substrate and lie upside down for like 5 minutes as if their dead! It's weird!


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## Matt Warner (9 Oct 2012)

That is really weird. Guess it must be something in the water


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## daza.141 (13 Oct 2012)

How strange never hear of this before   lovely looking fish though i may have to consider getting myself some


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## John S (26 Jun 2013)

Westyggx said:


> Funny you should post this as recently my harlequins are acting crazy, when I feed them 1 or 2 of them zip up to the food and then crash back down into the substrate and lie upside down for like 5 minutes as if their dead! It's weird!


 
I know this is an old thread but did this get resolved? I've had a couple of Harlequins start doing this in the last two days. They look dead for about 5 minutes, still fully coloured, they then start to swim but shake for a couple of minutes like they hare having some sort of fit. A couple of minutes later they are back normal


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## Yo-han (26 Jun 2013)

Mine did this a few month ago too. They had Camallanus worms. After I treated them, never seen it anymore!


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