# Green Neon Tetra fakes death



## xim (11 Aug 2015)

Yesterday's morning (before CO2 injection), I scooped a green neon out of my tank because it was whirling around uncontrollably.

I put it in a bucket with an air stone. It stopped moving and floated like a dead fish but still breathing very lightly... I used a flashlight and a magnifying glass to examine it but it looked perfectly normal.

I searched the web for info, might be the whirling disease, but it is not concrete, just like anything aquarium!

Hours later, I opened the bucket lid, expecting to see it dead. But now it was able to keep balance and darted to hide behind the air stone. So I thought it was better and planned to reintroduce it back into the tank in non-CO2 hours. The bucket had no filter and I don't have a hospital tank ready.

When the time came, I put the net into the water. This time it didn't dart around but stopped moving and lied flat on the bottom. I poked it with the net and it just drifted away like a dead fish. I scooped it up to look closely. It still didn't move. So I put it back into the water and decided to let it die in the bucket. But I also suspected it might pretend to die because it stopped breathing immediately when I poked it.

2 hours later, I gently opened the lid and took a peek. It was swimming normally. And when I knocked the bucket, it darted! So I put in the net, sure enough, it faked death again. But I didn't buy it and put it back into the tank. It just swam away! I'm not 100% sure that it will be fine. But I've no doubt this darn fish can fake death.


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## Tim Harrison (11 Aug 2015)

xim said:


> Yesterday's morning (before CO2 injection), I scooped a green neon out of my tank because it was whirling around uncontrollably.
> 
> I put it in a bucket with an air stone. It stopped moving and floated like a dead fish but still breathing very lightly... I used a flashlight and a magnifying glass to examine it but it looked perfectly normal.
> 
> ...


That's really quite funny...if it really is faking death that's some pretty special adaptive behaviour for a green neon...
Check this out...


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## BigTom (12 Aug 2015)

No idea if it's truly an adaptive response but I quite often see this behaviour when catching neons in the shop - they'll bob about like gonners for a few moments in the bag before righting themselves and continuing as normal. 

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## zozo (12 Aug 2015)

Chickens also fake death, they do it when they see a predatory bird in the sky. Actualy quite interestening that they can distinguish predatory fron non predatory high in the sky. Chickens are commonly known as stupid and fearfull birds. But they realy aren't they just despise being toucht by our filthy hands, thats what they are afraid of. And if you see how a mother chicken protects here ofspring fearlesly with here own life, from then on you would be proud to be called chicken..


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## Lindy (13 Aug 2015)

My parosphromenus play dead if I'm catching them and there's leaf litter. They just swirl and float with the leaves. That's why i never put leaves in when they are in the holding tank ( like now) as it's a bu@ger to separate them out. I have one simplex male that does it too but I'm not sure he does it deliberately. Thought he might just react poorly to stress of catching?  I nearly binned him but very glad i didn't. 

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## sciencefiction (13 Aug 2015)

I used to keep hamsters many years ago.  They also fake death if I let the kitten approach them. They'd just lie on their back and stop moving without the cat doing anything to them.


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## scootamum (14 Aug 2015)

I've had this happen with cardinal tetras.  I believe it's a stress response, because everytime it's happened it has been after I've just put them in my tank.  My LFS warned me that they are prone to do this, so I was prepared for it.  I just left them with the lights off for a couple of hours.  By the time I turned the lights on they were acting fine.


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