# Aquarium Lighthing and the fish health



## clone (13 Nov 2013)

Hi, I randomly browsing in the NET found this article.....which left me a litle confused and sad at the same time.  Lighting: How It Affects Freshwater Fish
What I understand is that hi-lighted tank is bad for the fish no matter what kind is it. I wonder if the fish can adapt or will remain stressed untill die. If Iwagumi is bad for the fish due is type of "naked" skape and the fish has no where to hide? Do we ruin the fish natural rhytm of life chasing PAR levels and dense planting/ carpets. If hi-tech, hi- lighted, loaded wth chemicals tanks are unsuitable for fish or they are just to satisfy our ego of how good we are of pushing the nature? Any answesr please!!!

Thanks


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## PARAGUAY (13 Nov 2013)

Not conclusive on this one Nickolas, the way some fish are now farmed and sold the water paramiters in which they are now  tank bred have them slightly altering their need for tank conditions as often quoted in older aquarium books.Unless for a specific fish  I think the tank planted and large enough to have different areas in in it ie thickly planted,open swimming area,shady area with shade plants and fish in numbers were they wont be stressed-example keep a siamese male fighter solitary,shoaling tetras in numbers.Having said that floating plants if the lighting is troublesome gives a relaxed feel.


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## clone (13 Nov 2013)

I clearly understand that as everything alive, the fish are adptable to the stress( hi-light, cold water, excessive nutritients, hi-waterflow of the filter...e.t.c.) we can not even suggest where the fish has been imported of bred so we can rely only on the old books and the mother nature. As we saw in the article the rapid light changes should be avoided because of the slow eye accomodation of the fish to the light... as you suggest we shall provide dense stem plants and shade parts of the tank so the fish can choose where to go. What I think is that trying to keep as natural as possible the tank is the best. Do we accept twisting the nature for our pleasure...or not....or we just try to recreate the Mother Nature? How far that hobby can go?


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## OllieNZ (13 Nov 2013)

Nothing about keeping fish in a glass box is natural.
We can never match mother nature. Take a fish that lives in streams or rivers in the wild it would encounter flow rates measured in cubic meters per second all fresh water, not the litres per hour of the same water we have in our tanks. Even the most religious water changers wont come close to providing the daily turnover of fresh water encountered in the wild. Not to forget rain, temperature and seasons. So why try replicate the complexity of nature when we cant and dont need to?


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## Michael W (13 Nov 2013)

Ollie made the point that I wanted to make. The process from the point of taking the fish out of the water from the wild up to the point where you introduce the fish into the tank and its eventual death be it from illness/ old age is anything but natural. Taking the fish out of its environment and selective breeding for certain traits say for example the Electric Blue Ram is itself twisting nature is it not? Such colour could not be found in the wild or its highly unlikely because the fish would get eaten yet we produce these colours for our pleasure.

We can however, try to achieve effects similar to the wild but thats down to personal choices and even then you still could not consider it as being natural.


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## clone (13 Nov 2013)

Hi, Thanks for the replies both of you guys. I will leave this as an open tread...


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## OllieNZ (13 Nov 2013)

Michael W said:


> We can however, try to achieve effects similar to the wild but thats down to personal choices and even then you still could not consider it as being natural.



I think we still need to pay attention to the nature of the fish we keep. 90% of fish in the hobby will live full lives but not necessarily breed in neutral water and this gives us the option to keep a wide range of fish. I think alot of fish will live longer and be healthier in a high tech planted tank due to the large frequent water changes, meticulous maintainence and large plant mass than in a typical fish only tank with a small water change every few weeks.


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## Michael W (13 Nov 2013)

Your right, don't get me wrong, I don't believe we shouldn't pay attention to the fish's natural habitats. I quite like Biotopes myself, but it doesn't come without a cost. For example, some amazon biotopes use very little plants but they have a lot of tannis, this fulfills Nikolas' idea of having a dimmer aquarium but its trade off could be seen as less plants to help with filtration. On the other hand a well planted aquarium may see concern in for example the lighting's intensity as seen in this thread although I don't believe its a problem.

So my meaning was either method has its potential problems hence personal opinion.


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## OllieNZ (13 Nov 2013)

I'm in agreeance with what you said (sorry if it didn't come across that way). I think we need to know where a fish comes from so we can decide wether it will be suitable to add to our setup. You wouldn't keep apistos with malawis or white clouds with discus for example. But at the same time you dont need to keep fish in a tank that looks biotypical as long as they are suitable for the conditions you're providing.


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## Michael W (13 Nov 2013)




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## PARAGUAY (13 Nov 2013)

I would always try to recreate conditions were possible for the fish,taking into consideration the biotope but not always trying to recreate that would be mainly impossible in an aquarium.Like Harlequins and tetras continents apart but sharing similar habitats.Large aquariums can allow some scope for this. My local FS have this new variety of cardinals Gold Cardinal Tetra,a German or Dutch tank bred strain I think? These fish are more tolerant of PH and water need not be too soft apparently but I would still give them the same planted tank as a wild CT.even though they look perfectly happy in the dealers non planted brightly lit tank.


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## Martin in Holland (14 Nov 2013)

Most fish are farmed in an empty tank with no plants or decorations to be able to keep the tank as clean and free from any pests as possible, so my guess is that they are ok with a Iwagumi tank.


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## clone (14 Nov 2013)

Hi, and thanks for the replies. I am glad that most of you do care of the fish habitats/ morphology and do their research about specific spieces befor added to their setup. As I said, we the humans take something from the nature, put it in a cage , and then expect to be happy. The animals are highly adaptable but not necessary happy. The video with the "Iwagumi" was showing that "schooling " behaviur of the neon tetras and their pale colour is a sign of stress , because in their natural habitat is much more shelter to hide than in that rocky scape. There are many other examples where the fish can not adapt to the Skape and hurt their body (catfish develop ulcer because sharp gravel, fishes kill each other or hurt each other because incompatibility) e.t.c.. The thing is that most of the fish has their natural instincts no matter that is bred in absolutely "naked" tanks. Lets say Catfish still get stressed from bright light and look for cave shelters no matter that comes from farm. We can not change the nature we can only try to twist it. Why the artificially developed spieces are so fragile and reqiure special attention in therms of living conditions (Crystal red/ black Shrimp)?


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## dw1305 (14 Nov 2013)

Hi all,
Shoaling is usually a stress response, and I'm fairly convinced that most fish are happier in complex, environments with lots of structure. Very few fish we keep are naturally pelagic, or occur over featureless flat substrates, although some Tanganyikan cichlids _(Cyprichromis, Xenotilapia_) would be an exception.

Personally I don't mind if I very rarely see any of the fish, as long as when I see them they look in good condition.

Very few small fish will spend any time out in the open in bright light, because they are very vulnerable to predation from both aquatic and avian predators. This is why they shoal, it offers some advantages in adverse conditions.

Give them some cover above, and they will shoal under that, give them a more complex environment, and they will stop shoaling at all, although they may still spread around the tank in 2-3's, rather than singly.

This is also why you can "dither" dwarf cichlids and catfish, they are only confident to come out of cover when small fish are occupying the upper reaches of the water column, once the dithers are present they can come out and feed safely.

cheers Darrel


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## Michael W (14 Nov 2013)

My Neons don't shoal in my  heavily planted 80L and they do swim around in 2s or 3s, its really funny at times because every day they will separate into little groups and start sparring, darting towards each other head on.


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## Troglodyte (17 Nov 2013)

Clone,
Excellent topic,good link and one that I believe is a genuine topic for debate discussions.  There are no right or wrong answers here only best practices/guidelines/opinions of the day. Myself I follow the reasoning that the majority of hobbyists, would not willingly do something that they knew would harm their fish. However there are many things we do as hobbyists, that priorities our needs as hobbyists, over the well being of our fish. As Paraguay, Ollie and others have already pointed out. However if something has taken several million years of evolution to perform in a specific way, it is not going to adapt to new commercial requirements of change just to suit our aquarium requirements. At least not without adverse behaviour effects. However without the commercial requirements, no one would be interested in preserving the fish and environment it lives in. Lighting is crucial for fish in many ways. There are scientific papers that prove that different types of spectrum colour lighting promotes chilled out fish when stocked heavily in food fish. (ie tilapia- using blue light) So there must be for ornamental fish. Also high light  levels have been shown to create the production of the stress hormone cortisol. We all know the feeling of the lack of lighting coming into winter compared to summer. I am sure the fish will feel the same way biologically. This and the fact that we are only now finding out that the lighting levels can impact the health levels of our fish too. SO we are only just starting to discover this exciting new episode of lighting impacts on our charges, an area of further development I think.


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