Can Fish Throw Up? The 84 Detailed Answer

Betta fish are one of the most popular choices among aquarists. The main reason is their stunning looks, majestic swimming and of course the feeling of relaxation one gets from watching them swim.

You may want to address some of the difficulties that come with being a fish parent to a betta. A Betta fish that spits out bubbles or food is one such problem.

In general, the most common reason a betta fish will spit out its food is because it simply ate too much. When it comes to food, Betta fish have a reputation for being greedy. However, other reasons can include a large portion size, a parasite infection, or a Betta fish with constipation.

If your betta fish is also spitting out pellets and you want to know the solution, you’ve come to the right place. Below are some common queries and some plausible explanations for this behavior.

So buckle up and get ready.

Reasons bettas vomit

When it comes to food, bettas seem to be the most greedy. They eat more food than they can possibly digest. Understandably, you would be concerned if your Betta spits out their food. In many cases, however, this is not a cause for concern.

We have compiled a list of all the possible reasons your betta may be throwing up. Here you are:

1. They serve large portions

This is the most common reason for betta fish to spit out food. Your betta fish’s stomach is as small as its eye. Apparently, this means they can’t digest a lot of food.

Being greedy, they will try to swallow every pellet and end up overeating. However, food quickly swells in the mouth and they feel unable to hold it down. And that’s when bettas spit out their food.

Also, some food pellets may be larger than their stomachs, so spitting it up is certainly best for them.

If you want to avoid such situations, be sure to feed your betta fish small portions of food and carefully selected food pellets.

2. Your betta has digestive problems

Fish can also have digestive issues, and the Betta isn’t spared either.

Spitting up food is very common and the most common digestive problem it causes is constipation. If the betta fish has suffered from constipation, it will no longer be able to eat. It may try to eat, but may vomit due to constipation.

Well, how do you find out if your betta has constipation? One way is to keep track of defecation schedules.

Some symptoms of constipation include a swollen body, protruding scales, and a bloated abdomen. You shouldn’t worry about the early stages of constipation, but you should take action if it lasts for days.

3. You have a young betta

If you recently bought a betta fish, it may be too young. Young betta fish do not have a robust digestive system. If you feed them pellets and flakes, chances are they are not used to digesting this type of food.

What you can feed an adult Betta may not be a good option for a young one.

For easy digestion, young bettas should only be fed light food.

Try experimenting with different food brands. Once you’ve found an acceptable strain, you can gradually expand your horizons by experimenting with other pellets and flakes.

4. Parasites can live in your Betta’s stomach

Although uncommon, bettas could get parasites in their intestines. These parasites can prevent your betta from eating properly. Even if the betta is hungry, it may not be able to swallow food and will vomit it up instead.

If you think your fish has an infected stomach, keep it in a separate tank so it doesn’t spread the infection to other fish. Another sign of a parasite infection is difficulty swimming. In this case, it is best to call a veterinarian to ensure the matter is properly handled and the betta is dewormed. You can also use products like Imagitarium Parasite Remedy to get rid of the parasites.

When is Betta Vomiting a Serious Concern?

If your betta fish starts spitting up food, it’s usually nothing to worry about. It is most likely because the feed is too big for the fish.

Bettas are beautiful fish, but sometimes their beautiful colors hide signs of illness. If you notice that your betta hasn’t been eating well, staying in one spot for too long, or pinching fins, it could be an indication of a parasitic infection or constipation.

What should I do if my Betta fish vomits?

You now know why your betta fish is vomiting food, so you must be wondering what you can do to help. Here is a short list:

Soaking the dry food and mosquito larvae will help the Betta digest the food easily.

Ask the shopkeeper if the betta is young before you buy it. If this is the case, match his food to his diet.

If it has parasites, consult the doctor and get medication for treatment.

Wrap up

All fish need care. Likewise, Betta fish need proper care and treatment.

If your betta fish has any problems, try to deal with them quickly. All of the issues on our list are treatable. Choose the right size and type of food, track their activities and clean the aquarium properly.

If your fish does not eat for more than 10 minutes, remove the food. If you leave it to decay, it will turn into toxic nitrates that can disturb your betta’s home.

Continue reading

https://pethelpful.com/fish-aquariums/diseases-of-a-betta-fish

https://pets.webmd.com/what-do-betta-fish-eat#1

Changes in eating habits are generally accompanied by an attack of stress. According to AquariumFish, if your goldfish puts food in its mouth and then immediately spits it out, it may be stressing you out from unfavorable water conditions. If stress is the reason he’s dumping his food, you can help your goldfish by temporarily removing him from his bowl or tank and giving him a thorough cleaning. Clean gravel in the habitat and change all or part of the water, add some aquarium salt and increase the water temperature.

Here’s a look at some frequently asked questions about this wonderfully wacky underwater world (including some you might never have thought of) –

Do fish fart?

Fish flatulence might not be one of the most common sea mysteries you’re dying to know the answer to, but at the same time it’s never failed to create a stunned expression on recipients’ faces and get everyone thinking… right?

Well, the answer depends on your definition of a fart. If you consider farting to be a by-product of digestion (gases) expelled solely through the posterior, then most fish (with the exception of herring and sand sharks) do not fart. Some may say that they have observed air escaping from the neither region of a fish after swallowing air at the surface, but this isn’t actually a product of digestion, so can it be called a fart? Most fish use air to inflate and deflate their bladder to maintain buoyancy, which is expelled either through the mouth or gills, which can be mistaken for a fart. For example, sand tiger sharks gulp air into their stomachs at the surface, which they then vent out the back door to reach a desired depth. Is that a fart in the truest sense of the word? We let you decide. Experts say that fish’s digestive gasses are solidified with their feces and expelled in jelly-like tubes that fish sometimes eat (er…I know!) again. Point is – no farts.

The herring, however, is a different story altogether. Research and observation have shown that this fish makes a mysterious underwater sound through its tail (referred to as a farting or breaking wind), always accompanied by a fine stream of bubbles. This way of expelling air to produce a high-frequency sound is a means of communication for the herring and shows no connection to digestive gases or what we call farts, other than appearing like bubbles coming out of the fish’s anal passage.

how long do fish live How do you tell the age of a fish?

Some of the smaller reef fish can have lifespans of a few weeks or months, while some other species like sturgeons can live up to 50 years or more. Longevity information is still sparse, but scientists have found that many species live around 10 to 20 years in temperate waters. Animals with the longest lifespans are the marionette tortoise (152 years), the fin whale (116 years) and the deep-sea mussel (100 years).

The age of a fish can be determined in two ways. First, by the growth of “rings” on the scales, and the second, and more reliable method, by the ring-like structures found in otoliths (small bones of the inner ear). The annual rings correspond to seasonal changes in the environment and can be compared to the annual rings of tree trunks. For each year of life, a series of fine rings are laid out in scales in summer, the rings grow faster and are relatively widely spaced; in winter, slower growth is indicated by narrow spaces between the rings. Each pair of rings indicates a year. Because scale rings are sometimes influenced by other factors, scientists often use otoliths, whose ring-shaped structures also indicate years of life.

Do fish sleep?

It all depends on what you mean by sleep. My dictionary says that sleep is a resting phase when the eyes are closed and there is little or no thought or movement. That said, sleeping means closing your eyes and resting. The first thing that strikes us is that most fish don’t have eyelids (except for sharks). While some deep sea fish never stop moving, a great many fish live almost motionless lives and many do so on a regular day/night cycle, some being active during the day and others at night. So we cannot generalize and say that all fish sleep like us. But most fish are resting. Usually they just empty their minds and do what we might call daydreaming. Some swim in place, some wedge themselves in one spot in mud or coral, some even build nests. They will still be alert for danger, but they will also “sleep.” Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

What is the biggest fish in the world? The smallest?

The largest is the whale shark, which grows to over 50 feet in length and can weigh several tons; The second largest is the basking shark, which can be 35 to 40 feet long. The world’s smallest fish are the Pygmy Goby and Luzon Goby of the Philippines, which are only half an inch long when fully grown and support a fishery.

By far the largest known marine mammal and animal on earth is the blue whale. Adult blue whales can measure between 75 feet (23 meters) and 100 feet (30.5 meters) from head to tail and weigh up to 150 tons (136 tons).

More questions:

How do sea creatures navigate the underwater world?

Do fish ever get thirsty?

Which sea animal is the best predator of the seas?

Can fish swim backwards?

*Credit: photos by PKMousie, star5112, Richard Ling on flickr

When Culum Brown was a young boy, he and his grandmother used to visit a park near their home in Melbourne, Australia. He was fascinated by the park’s large ornamental pond, which meandered with goldfish, mosquitofish, and loaches. Brown walked around the pond and peered into the clear shallows to study the fish. One day he and his grandmother came to the park to find that the pond had been drained – something the park authorities seem to do every few years. Piles of fish fluttered onto the exposed bed, suffocating in the sun.

Brown rushed from one trash can to the next, searching them and picking up any discarded containers he could find — mostly plastic soda bottles. He filled the bottles at drinking fountains and caged several fish at each one. He pushed other stranded fish into areas of the pond where some water remained. “I was out of my mind, running around like a madman trying to save these animals,” recalls Brown, who is now a marine biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney. Ultimately, he managed to save hundreds of fish, of which he adopted about 60. Some of them lived in its home aquariums for more than 10 years.

I also kept fish as a child. My very first pets were two goldfish, bright as freshly minted pennies, in an unadorned glass bowl the size of a honeydew melon. They died within a few weeks. I later upgraded to a 40 liter tank lined with rainbow gravel and a few plastic plants. Inside I kept a variety of small fish: neon tetras banded in fluorescent blues and reds, guppies with bold, billowing tails like solar flares, and glass catfish so translucent they resembled no more than silver-topped spines darting through the water. Most of these fish lived much longer than the goldfish, but some of them had a habit of jumping straight through the gaps in the tank cover onto the living room floor in ecstatic arcs. My family and I found her behind the TV, covered in dust and fluff.

Should we care how Pisces feels? In his 1789 treatise An Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation, the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham – who developed the theory of utilitarianism (essentially the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals) – articulated an idea that fueled debates about Animal welfare has been central ever since. When considering our ethical obligations to other animals, Bentham wrote, the most important question is not, “Can they think rationally?” still, can you speak? but, can they suffer?” Conventional wisdom has long maintained that fish cannot—that they feel no pain. An exchange in a 1977 issue of Field & Stream illustrates the typical argument. In response to a 13-year-old girl’s letter about whether fish suffer when caught, writer and fisherman Ed Zern initially accused her of having a parent or teacher write the letter because it was so well written. He then explains that “fish don’t feel pain like you do when you skin your knee or stub your toe or have a toothache because their nervous system is much simpler. I’m not sure if they feel pain the way we feel pain, but they probably feel a kind of ‘fish pain’.” Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what primitive condition they’re suffering because it’s all part of the big food chain, and besides: “If anything or anyone ever stops us from fishing, we will suffer terribly.”

This logic is still widespread today. In 2014, BBC Newsnight invited Penn State University biologist Victoria Braithwaite to discuss fish pain and welfare with Bertie Armstrong, Chair of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. Armstrong dismissed the notion that fish deserve welfare laws as “capricious” and insisted that “the balance of scientific evidence is that fish don’t feel pain like we do”.

That’s not entirely true, says Braithwaite. It is impossible to know definitively whether another living being’s subjective experience corresponds to our own. But that is beside the point. We don’t know if cats, dogs, experimental animals, chickens and cattle feel pain the same way we do, yet we give them increasingly humane treatment and legal protections because they have demonstrated their capacity to suffer. Over the past 15 years, Braithwaite and other fish biologists around the world have provided substantial evidence that, like mammals and birds, fish consciously feel pain. “More and more people are willing to accept the facts,” says Braithwaite. “Fish feel pain. It’s probably different than what people feel, but it’s still a kind of pain.”

At an anatomical level, fish have neurons known as nociceptors that sense potential damage such as high temperatures, intense pressure, and harsh chemicals. Fish produce the same opioids – the body’s own painkillers – as mammals. And their brain activity during injury is analogous to that of terrestrial vertebrates: poking a needle into goldfish or rainbow trout just behind their gills stimulates nociceptors and a cascade of electrical activity that rushes to brain regions essential for conscious sensory perception (such as the cerebellum, tectum and telencephalon), not just the hindbrain and brainstem, which are responsible for reflexes and impulses.

Pisces also behave in ways that suggest they are consciously experiencing pain. In one study, researchers dropped groups of colorful Lego bricks into tanks of rainbow trout. Trout usually avoid an unfamiliar object suddenly introduced into their environment in case it is dangerous. But when scientists gave rainbow trout a painful injection of acetic acid, they were much less likely to exhibit this defensive behavior, presumably because they were distracted from their own suffering. In contrast, fish injected with both acid and morphine maintained their usual caution. Like all analgesics, morphine dulls the sensation of pain but does nothing to eliminate the source of pain itself, suggesting that fish behavior reflects their mental state and not just their physiology. If the fish reacted reflexively to the presence of caustic acid instead of consciously feeling pain, then the morphine should not have made a difference.

In another study, rainbow trout that had acetic acid injected into their lips began to breathe faster, rocked back and forth on the bottom of the tank, rubbed their lips on the gravel and side of the tank, and took more than twice as long to breathe Resume feeding like fish injected with benign saline. Fish injected with both acid and morphine also exhibited some of these unusual behaviors, but to a much lesser extent, while fish injected with saline never behaved oddly.

A few years ago, Lynne Sneddon, a University of Liverpool biologist and one of the world’s leading experts on fish pain, began conducting a series of particularly fascinating experiments; So far, only some of the results have been published. In one test, she had zebrafish choose between two aquariums: one completely sterile, the other with gravel, a plant, and views of other fish. They consistently preferred to spend time in the livelier, decorated chamber. However, when some fish were injected with acid and the dreary tank was flooded with painkilling lidocaine, they changed their preference and left the enriched tank. Sneddon repeated this study with one change: instead of flooding the boring aquarium with painkillers, she injected it directly into the fish’s bodies so they could take it with them wherever they swam. The fish stayed behind between the gravel and the green.

The collective evidence is now robust enough that biologists and veterinarians are increasingly accepting fish pain as a reality. “It’s changed so much,” says Sneddon, reflecting on her experiences with both scientists and the general public. “In 2003, when I was lecturing, I asked, ‘Who thinks fish can feel pain?’ It only went up a hand or two. Now you ask the room and pretty much everyone puts their hands up.” In 2013, the American Veterinary Medical Association released new guidelines for animal euthanasia that included the following statements: “Suggestions that fish responses to pain represent merely simple reflexes have been discarded refuted. … the overwhelming body of evidence collected supports the position that finfish should be given the same considerations as terrestrial vertebrates in terms of pain relief.”

However, this scientific consensus has not penetrated the public perception. Google “do fish feel pain” and you’ll find yourself in a morass of conflicting messages. They don’t, says one headline. They do, says another. Other sources claim that a confused debate rages between scientists. In truth, that level of ambiguity and disagreement no longer exists in the scientific community. In 2016, Brian Key, a professor at the University of Queensland, published an article entitled “Why fish do not feel pain” in Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling. So far, Key’s article has elicited more than 40 responses from scientists around the world, almost all of whom disagree with his conclusions.

Key is one of the most vocal critics of the idea that fish can suffer consciously; the other is James D. Rose, a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Wyoming and an avid angler who has written for the pro-angler publication Angling Matters. The thrust of their argument is that the studies claiming to show pain in fish are poorly designed and, more fundamentally, that fish lack a brain complex enough to produce a subjective experience of pain. In particular, they point out that fish don’t have the kind of large, dense, wavy cerebral cortices that humans, primates, and certain other mammals have. The cortex, which envelops the rest of the brain like bark, is thought to be crucial for sensory perception and consciousness.

Some of the critiques published by Key and Rose are valid, particularly regarding methodological flaws. Some studies in the growing literature on pain in fish do not properly distinguish between a reflexive response to injury and a probable experience of pain, and some researchers have overstated the importance of these flawed efforts. However, such studies are currently in the minority. Many experiments have confirmed the early work of Braithwaite and Sneddon.

Furthermore, the notion that fish don’t have the cerebral complexity to feel pain is decidedly antiquated. Scientists agree that most, if not all, vertebrates (as well as some invertebrates) are conscious, and that a cerebral cortex as swollen as our own is not a prerequisite for a subjective experience of the world. The planet contains a multitude of brains, dense and spongy, globose and oblong, as small as poppies and as big as watermelons; Different lineages of animals have independently conjured up similar mental abilities from vastly different neural machines. A spirit doesn’t have to be human to suffer.

Despite the evidence of conscious suffering in fish, they are not typically afforded the legal protections afforded to livestock, laboratory animals and pets in many countries around the world. The UK has some of the most advanced animal welfare legislation, typically covering all non-human vertebrates. In Canada and Australia, animal welfare laws are fragmented and vary from one state or province to another; Some protect fish, some don’t. Japan’s relevant legislation largely neglects fish. China has very few substantive animal welfare laws of any kind. And in the United States, the Animal Welfare Act protects most warm-blooded animals used in research and sold as pets, but excludes fish, amphibians, and reptiles. But the sheer number of fish killed for food and farmed for pet stores dwarfs the corresponding numbers of mammals, birds and reptiles. About 70 billion terrestrial animals are killed for food worldwide every year. This number includes chickens, other poultry, and all types of livestock. In contrast, an estimated 10 to 100 billion farmed fish are killed worldwide each year and another 1 to 3 trillion fish are caught in the wild. The number of fish killed each year far exceeds the number of people who have ever walked the earth.

“For the most part, we thought of fish as very alien and very simple, so we didn’t care how we killed them,” says Braithwaite. “If we look at trawl nets, it’s a pretty gruesome way fish die: the barometric trauma of being yanked out of the ocean and then slowly suffocating. Can we do this more humanely? Yes. Should we? Probably yes. We mostly don’t do it at the moment because it’s more expensive to kill fish humanely, especially in the wild.”

**********

In some countries, such as the UK and Norway, fish farms have largely adopted humane slaughter methods. Instead of suffocating fish in air – the simplest and most historically common practice – or freezing them to death in ice water or poisoning them with carbon dioxide, they render fish unconscious with either a quick blow to the head or powerful electrical currents to pierce their brains Or let them bleed out. In Norway, Hanne Digre and her colleagues at the research organization SINTEF have piloted these techniques on commercial fishing vessels to see if humane slaughter is possible at sea.

In a series of experiments, Digre and her colleagues tested different slaughter methods in the open sea on a variety of species. They found that cod and haddock stored in drying bins on ships after harvesting remained conscious for at least two hours. An electric shock immediately after fish were placed on a ship could knock them unconscious, but only if the current was strong enough. If the electric shock was too weak, the fish were simply immobilized. Some species, like pollock, tended to snap their spines and bleed internally when shocked; others, like cod, had far fewer problems. Some fish regained consciousness about 10 minutes after being stunned, so the researchers recommend cutting their throats within 30 seconds of being electrocuted.

In the United States, two brothers are pioneering a new way of humane fishing. In the fall of 2016, Michael and Patrick Burns, both longtime fishermen and ranchers, launched a unique fishing vessel called the Blue North. The 58 meter long boat, capable of transporting around 750 tons and a crew of 26, specializes in harvesting Pacific cod from the Bering Sea. The crew works in an air-conditioned room in the center of the boat, which contains a moon pool – a hole through which they pull fish one at a time. This sanctuary protects the crew from the elements and gives them far more control over the fishing than they would on a regular vessel. Within seconds of bringing a fish to the surface, the crew moves it to a stunning table, which renders the animal unconscious with around 10 volts DC. The fish are then bled.

The Burns brothers were originally inspired by pioneering research into humane livestock slaughterhouses conducted by Temple Grandin, professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University and internationally renowned spokesman on autism. By considering the perspectives of the animals themselves, Grandin’s innovative designs have significantly reduced stress, panic and injury in cattle being herded to a slaughterhouse, while making the entire process more efficient for the ranchers. “One day it occurred to me, why can’t we apply some of these principles to the fishing industry? Michael remembers. Inspired by moonpools found on Norwegian fishing vessels and the use of electrical stunning in various forms of animal husbandry, they designed Blue North. Michael believes his new vessel is one of maybe two vessels in the world consistently using electrical stunning on wild-caught fish. “We believe that fish are sentient beings, that they experience panic and stress,” he says. “We have developed a method to stop this.”

The Burns brothers currently export the cod they catch to Japan, China, France, Spain, Denmark and Norway. The fact that the fish is humanely harvested wasn’t a huge draw for their core buyers, says Michael, but he expects that to change. He and his team have spoken to various animal welfare organizations to develop new standards and certifications for humanely caught wild fish. “It’s getting more common,” says Michael. “A lot of people out there are concerned about where their food comes from and how it’s treated.” Now, the vast majority of the trillions of fish slaughtered annually are killed in ways that are likely to cause them immense pain. The truth is that even the introduction of humane slaughter methods in more advanced countries was not entirely, or even primarily, ethically motivated. Rather, such changes are profit-driven. Studies have shown that reducing stress in farmed and captured fish, killing them quickly and efficiently with minimal struggle improves the quality of the meat that eventually makes it to market. The flesh of fish that has been humanely killed is often smoother and less blotchy. When we treat fish well, we’re not really doing it for them; we do it for our. ********** “I’ve always had a natural empathy for animals and had no reason to exclude fish,” says Brown. “At that park [in Melbourne] they had no concerns that there were fish and they might need some water. There was no attempt to save her or house her. That shocked me at that age, and I still see that kind of callous disregard for Pisces in people today in all sorts of contexts. Since we first discovered evidence of pain in fish, I don’t think the public perception has changed one bit.” Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time at my local pet shops observing the fish. They move restlessly and silently, striding from one side of their shell to the other without legs. Some hang in the water with their heads held high, as if caught on an invisible line. A glitter of scales catches my attention; an unexpected splash of color. I try to face one – a depthless disk of obsidian. His mouth moves mechanically, like a sliding door stuck in a loop. I look at these fish, I enjoy looking at them, I wish them no harm; yet I almost never wonder what they’re thinking or feeling. Fish are our direct evolutionary ancestors. They are the original vertebrates, the scaly, short-limbed pioneers that crawled out of the sea and colonized the land while still wet. So many abysses separate us now: geographically, anatomically, psychologically. We can rationalize the overwhelming evidence that fish are sentient. But the facts are not enough. To really feel sorry for a Pisces seems to require an Olympic feat of empathy. However, perhaps our typical interactions with fish—the peaceful pet in a puddle of glass or the garnished fillet on a plate—are too limited to reveal a capacity for suffering. I recently learned of a culinary tradition still practiced today known as ikizukuri: eating the raw flesh of a live fish. You can find videos online. In one instance, a cook covers a fish’s face with a cloth and holds it in place while shaving off its scales with something like a coarse cheese grater. He begins slicing the fish lengthways with a large knife, but the creature violently jumps out of his grasp and rolls over into a nearby sink. The cook retrieves the fish and proceeds to cut off both of its flanks. Blood as dark as pomegranate juice spurts out. He dunks the fish in a bowl of ice water while he prepares the sashimi. The whole fish is served on a plate with shaved radish and shiso leaves, rectangular chunks of its meat neatly stacked in its hollowed-out side, its mouth and gills still flapping and the occasional shudder spreading the length of its body. Related stories from Hakai Magazine: The Secret History of Bioluminescence It’s really the little things in life The Moon Sea

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Wait. What?

If fish can only live underwater, how can fish drown? It seems like a simple yes/no question, but in fact many things can go wrong that would deprive a fish of its ability to breathe properly, to the point where the fish could suffocate and “drown” due to the oxygen levels in the water , other unstable water parameters, parasites and diseases, or even poor selective breeding.

Read on to learn everything you need to know about how oxygen is dissolved in water, how fish breathe, and what can cause a fish to drown.

dissolved oxygen

In order to understand how oxygen levels in the water affect fish, it is important to study how oxygen gets from the air to the water in the first place. Dissolved Oxygen (DO) is the scientific measurement used to determine how much oxygen is in water and ready for living organisms to use. Dissolved oxygen is affected by many factors including depth, temperature, atmospheric exchange, external sources, and photosynthesis.

depth and temperature

Cold water contains more dissolved oxygen and warm water contains less dissolved oxygen. This means that at low surface water temperatures (as long as the exchange between air and water is not impeded by ice) the concentration of dissolved oxygen is high; When surface water temperatures are high, the dissolved oxygen concentration is low.

Seasons of the year, as well as elevation and latitude, have a major impact on how much dissolved oxygen is actually available in the water column. Salinity also affects freshwater concentrations compared to saltwater systems. This is one of the main reasons for concern that the earth’s average temperature is rising; As the atmosphere warms, surface water also warms, slowing oxygen exchange. Those organisms that require oxygen to survive may face declining dissolved oxygen levels.

Atmospheric exchange

So how does oxygen get into the water column in the first place? One of the main ways oxygen enters the water column is through surface exchange. This is largely due to the mixing of water with the oxygen in the air caused by wind and waves. This means that highly turbulent rivers usually have higher dissolved oxygen concentrations than stagnant lakes.

External Sources

However, these rivers eventually drain into larger bodies of water, bringing with them the dissolved oxygen and affecting the naturally occurring concentrations in those areas. Some of these streams are additionally fed by groundwater, which will also affect dissolved oxygen concentrations.

photosynthesis

Just as trees photosynthesize, aquatic plants and vegetation convert carbon dioxide into oxygen while processing their own food. An autotrophic plankton called phytoplankton is particularly important for its contribution to dissolved oxygen levels by photosynthesizing in surface waters during the day.

breathing

Those organisms that do not engage in photosynthesis instead undergo respiration, which converts oxygen into carbon dioxide. This includes fish, snails, crabs, as well as the same phytoplankton we talked about before!

One of the largest groups using respiration is bacteria. When minerals and nutrients enter a system, algae and other photosynthetic organisms begin to thrive in these eutrophic conditions; This is usually caused by runoff of fertilizers and other nutrient-rich solutions entering an ecosystem unnaturally. The algae can become so dense that the water is tinted green, blocking all light from entering through the first few inches of water. This eventually causes aquatic plants to starve due to their inability to photosynthesize.

At the same time, the algae begin to die off as the excess nutrients are absorbed and broken down from the water. At this point, bacteria begin to break down the decaying algae and other vegetation. Because there is so much of this food to keep the bacterial population thriving, the numbers increase and so does respiration, causing the oxygen levels in the breath to decrease. When this oxygen level decreases rapidly, the water becomes anoxic.

With such a lack of oxygen, as a rule, all organisms that need oxygen to survive die. These areas become known as dead zones where aquatic life cannot be supported.

How fish breathe

Fish have gills that allow the fish to breathe. These gills are an extensive network of blood-filled capillaries that provide a large surface area for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. It should be noted that there are fish and invertebrates that can breathe both in and out of the water, but we will not go into the physiology of these species in this article. For typical fish:

First, fish take in oxygen through their mouths. They then create pressure in their mouths, which causes the water to traverse the thin layers of gills. The dissolved oxygen diffuses into the bloodstream because the oxygen concentrations in the blood are lower than in the surrounding water. Carbon dioxide is also expelled back into the water through the gills.

But what happens when the fish is pulled backwards like a fishing line and cannot take water through its mouth?

Can sharks swim backwards?

You may have heard that sharks have to swim constantly to breathe. While some species are exceptions to this rule and like other fish can breathe, it is generally true and sharks will suffocate if there is no fresh inflow of water through their gills. But can a shark swim backwards?

Sharks are the only species of fish that cannot swim backwards, mainly due to the structure of their pectoral fins, which cannot change their curvature. However, if they could swim backwards – or were pulled onto shore by a fisherman – they would likely suffocate as well.

Gills are designed to expel and process water, not take in water. The backward movement would result in water being forced over the gills, interfering with the normal breathing process and ultimately causing the fish to be unable to breathe, eventually leading to ‘drowning’.

The Simple Answer: Can Fish Drown?

Yes, fish can “drown” – for lack of a better word. However, it is better to think of it as a form of asphyxiation where the oxygen levels are too low or the fish is unable to properly draw oxygen from the water for one reason or another. In the following sections, we’ll go further into the reasons why fish can drown.

The long answer

If you’re looking for information on why your aquarium fish may have drowned, then we need to look at what can cause oxygen starvation in the water column. We will look at algal blooms, poor water conditions, disease and parasites, and body changes.

eutrophication and algal blooms

As we discussed earlier, an excess of nutrients can cause algal blooms, which in turn increase bacterial populations that deplete the oxygen levels in the water. If there isn’t enough oxygen in the water to breathe, they slowly suffocate.

Some of the worst harmful algal blooms (HAB) are usually a species of bacteria called cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, which can actually be dangerous to humans; Note that not all algal blooms are harmful in the sense that they lead to toxic conditions. However, the surrounding water can easily become contaminated and cause disease when consumed or swam in.

In these surrounding areas, shellfish can also filter food through the water and retain toxins that are present. Eating these shellfish can lead to paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), and anyone with possible symptoms should seek medical attention immediately.

One of the most notorious dead zones is at the mouth of the Mississippi River. This is the result of fertilizers from agricultural centers along the river being washed away until they concentrate at the beginning of the Gulf of Mexico. Many fisheries, shrimp farms and oyster farms have suffered from this hypoxic water that does not have enough oxygen available for healthy conditions.

water conditions

Why can’t you add a fish to a freshly run tank? If you don’t know the answer to this question, we recommend reading our guide to aquarium cycling here.

You may not know, but you may not know the exact reasons why an uncycled tank can be so detrimental to a new fish. One of the main problems is that a new tank goes through a water cycle, starting with ammonia – remember that ammonia can also rise when the tank is overfilled. If ammonia is present in the water column at all, all fish can be subject to ammonia poisoning.

Ammonia can burn your fish, making the gills look like they’re bleeding. This spotting will eventually spread to the rest of the body. At the same time, you can see how the fish are gasping on the surface of the water, not having an appetite and lying on the bottom of the tank. If the fish stays in these water conditions for too long, it cannot get the oxygen it needs, resulting in the fish drowning.

After ammonia comes nitrite, another deadly parameter that can quickly kill your fish. Once the fish has been released, nitrite enters the bloodstream and binds to hemoglobin where oxygen should have adhered, causing the fish to painfully suffocate and drown.

parasites and diseases

Fish need gills to breathe dissolved oxygen, but what happens when those gills have been damaged by parasites or disease? Unfortunately, the gills are a very common area where both internal and external parasites are found in/on fish. Most of these parasites belong to the class Monogenea, which includes flatworms that are commonly found on the skin or in the gills.

One slimy parasite is the gill fluke (genus Dactylogyrus) that attaches primarily to members of the Cyprinidae family such as goldfish, koi, and carp. These flukes are initially free-swimming and then, after several hours, must find a host to survive. This usually causes inflamed gills and can cause irritation leading to the fish scratching its gills on hard surfaces. The fish can also have trouble breathing properly, become lethargic, and have a loss of appetite.

Unfortunately, many fish succumb to these parasites as they are highly contagious and multiply rapidly. Most fish are either further weakened by other bacterial or fungal infections through scratching and inflammation, or are unable to extract enough oxygen from the water, causing the fish to drown.

Even more common in aquarium fish are ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis), which lodge in the gills and can have long-lasting effects if the fish survives.

Fish can also drown due to other factors such as bacterial or fungal infections. A problem faced by many salmon fisheries is bacterial gill disease (BGD); Interestingly, this is believed to be unique to the commercial industry and has not yet affected wild fish populations.

These bacteria in particular, Flavobacterium branchiophilum and F. succinicans, cause fish to become lethargic, experience a loss of appetite and be less responsive to external stimuli. Exposed fish also tend to position themselves directly in the flow of the new water, indicating increased oxygen demand. Without treatment, the fish can die if the bacteria overpopulate and not enough oxygen gets through the gills successfully.

Another similar bacterial infection is amoebic gill disease (AGD), which can also cause fish to drown.

body modifications

Some of the most beautiful fish in the aquarium trade have been selectively bred to express the most desirable body modifications, which unfortunately can cause the fish to drown. A great and sad example of this is the betta.

Betta fish are a special fish to consider when breathing. These fish have a special organ called the labyrinth organ that allows them to reach the surface of the water and swallow atmospheric air. This organ is believed to have evolved from the need for more oxygen in water with low oxygen levels. Betta fish, like other fish, can draw oxygen from the water via gills.

Betta fish species with long tails also have the ability to reach the surface of the water to gasp for air and suck in water through their gills. However, these fish have been bred so excessively that their tails drag them down, making it difficult to surface to breathe air or swim at all. Because of this, these fish become exhausted and usually lean against the side of a decoration or the bottom of the aquarium.

If there is little water movement in the tank, the oxygen will be depleted quickly and your fish will have trouble breathing and cannot get extra air. When the fish has absorbed as much oxygen as possible from the water column through its gills and still cannot swim to the surface for air, the fish will drown.

If you are looking for a betta fish, make sure you research as much information as possible to prevent this from happening. If you already have a long-tailed Betta fish, provide adequate water movement (without making it difficult for the fish to swim) and keep the water well-oxygenated. If you would like more information on how excessive finning can lead to drowning, check out our Rosetail Betta Downside of Beauty here.

Conclusion

Can fish drown? Absolutely. And it’s definitely not a pleasant experience when your fish are drowning.

Keep dissolved oxygen levels high in your aquarium by having plenty of water movement and exchange with air at the surface. Maintain water levels, watch out for parasites and diseases, and avoid fish with altered bodies, and hopefully you won’t have to experience what happens when fish drown.

If you have additional questions about why fish need oxygen, how fish can drown, or how air interacts with water, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!

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Getting back to basics – how do fish pee and poop? This might seem like a ridiculous (or even funny!) question, but it’s an important question. Many people overlook the fact that they have kidneys just like humans. They simply have a shorter urethra and no bladder, so their kidneys have to do a double job – filter the blood and also remove waste from them.

What does this mean for your pets? Well, it means that their ability to process and get rid of waste/digestive by-products is a key indicator of overall health. If their kidneys aren’t working properly, your pet may face problems like ammonia poisoning (due to incomplete proteins) or constipation (when waste can’t move through the system fast enough).

Since we’ve established the importance of learning how your pets get rid of waste, let’s go back to the original question: how do fish pee and poop? Well, it’s actually different for everyone.

How do fish poop?

The scientific term for feces is feces, and it’s a byproduct of digestion and microbial activity. It plays an important role in the carbon cycle but is also an indicator of the foods your pets eat. A diet high in plant-based flakes results in a different type of poop than a diet high in meaty, protein-based foods.

So how do fish expel their feces? Well, most of them will expel their feces through an anal opening (also called a cloaca), which is simply an opening for all waste to exit the body. This includes not only feces but also urine, reproduction and sometimes eggs or sperm if necessary.

Some species have a different route for urine than faeces – discus (Symphysodon), for example, expel their faeces through the orifice, but urinate through the mouth. This combination of features is also common in many cichlid species, including some of our favorite Rift Lake cichlids like the Frontosa and Lamprologus.

How do fish pee? Most often, fish pee over the gills. This may seem strange at first, but it actually makes sense. The gills are equipped with a series of capillaries that increase surface area to allow for efficient gas exchange. In addition, they are constantly flushed with water with every breath. So if you put two and two together, it makes sense that fish release their urine into the water through their gills. This can be a bit difficult to spot, and some pet owners describe it as raindrops on the water’s surface. Of course, there are some exceptions (okay, lots of exceptions, but we’ll get to that in a moment). Some species can store their urine and expel it through an anal opening. This is especially true for some species like Bettas (Betta splendens) where they can actually produce quite a bit of urine, expelling it through the vent about once a week.

Notable exceptions

As we mentioned above, there are many exceptions to the general way fish pee and poop.

In some species, males actually urinate through an anal opening rather than gills. This is because they have swollen anal chambers that increase surface area during the breeding season. Meanwhile, in some species, the females do the opposite, releasing it through their gills. This is a common practice among livebearers and some species of guppies (Poecilia), where they shed the oxygen they use up along with their excrements.

There are also some species, such as Betta splendens, that can expel both urine and feces through their gills or mouth at different times. This is especially true when they feel threatened, which is why you sometimes hear hobbyists advising to lock up the aquarium to keep your pets safe.

However, when it comes down to it, most species expel their waste through an anal orifice during regular activities. Although there are always exceptions that break the rules, the vast majority of species follow this pattern.

What is the importance of fish waste?

Now that you understand how fish eject waste, it’s important to understand the importance attached to it. Waste is important to aquatic animals and the environment in which they live. Here’s a closer look at what we mean:

It gives you an overall view of your pet’s health. It’s probably no surprise that aquatic animals poop just like any other animal. However, one of the perks of keeping fishy friends as pets is that their droppings give you an easy way to monitor their health. By paying attention to fish droppings, you can determine its age, diet, and overall health. For example, a 6-week-old fish will have very different stools than a middle-aged fish. This knowledge is invaluable when trying to diagnose any of your pet’s health problems. A constipated pet can have their delicate gut flora upset, leading to a build-up of toxins and a blockage. This results in dry, hard, and dark-colored fecal pellets. On the other hand, if your pet has bladder problems, they may be producing large amounts of dilute urine, resulting in feces that take on a liquid form. It can be dark brown in color and cloud the tank quickly. If you see this, it’s time to go to the vet!

It plays an essential role in the carbon cycle

Marine biologists estimate that fish produce about 50% of the organic matter (by weight) on Earth! Their feces and mucus play an essential role in the carbon cycle as they provide a food source for bacteria, which helps them destroy carbon-based molecules.

This process is very important as it helps remove harmful CO2 from the environment and returns it to the soil where plants can use it (rather than letting that CO2 into the atmosphere). Considering that vehicles, power plants, etc. emit tons of CO2, this is a particularly important process!

Therefore, the role of faeces/mucus in the carbon cycle is critical to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Whether it’s in the form of poop pellets in rivers or larger pellets in oceans, waste plays a huge role in keeping our environment in good shape.

It keeps aquatic plants healthy

Have you ever wondered if you can fertilize your plants with waste? We have good news for you! Fish droppings are actually a great source of fertilizer for aquatic plants. Of course, benthic animals (those that live on the sea floor) produce the best source of fertilizer for plants, but the role of fish remains fairly important.

Their waste is rich in phosphates and nitrates, which serve as “plant food.” That means it’s packed with nutrients that can help organisms like algae grow stronger and healthier. The strong growth of these aquatic plants in turn pleases the fish population, because they have hiding places!

Planktonic animals such as zooplankton also benefit from the nutrients contained in the feces. They graze on these plants and serve as a food source for larger animals such as turtles and birds. In short: almost every organism in the ocean depends on feces to survive!

It Allows the Commercial Fishing Industry to Thrive From fish farms to industrial fishing vessels, the fishing industry has a tremendous impact on our environment and cannot function without poop! The fertilizer produced from waste is so valuable to the commercial fishing industry that there are even laws regulating its disposal. Faeces play an important role in commercial fishing, allowing fishermen to maximize the use of their gear. The most advanced commercial fishing vessels can bring in thousands of pounds of livestock at once, and this type of catch requires the use of a lot of waste. To maximize efficiency, fishermen use nutrients from waste as bait for larger species.

Conclusion

We hope this article sheds some light on fish pee and faeces and why their waste is important. Your waste plays a variety of crucial roles in maintaining a balanced ecosystem and can be beneficial for plants and animals alike!

If you have any burning questions or just want to say hello, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section! And share this article with your friends if you think they will find it interesting!

Thanks for reading and again – happy fishing!

You may be wondering how fish poop and pee when there is no visible anus or opening other than their mouth. This article will give you the answer to that question and many others related to fish poop and pee.

How do fish poop and pee? Fish pee and defecate through gills and skin. Some also pee and poop through a small opening known as a pore, located at the back end of the body.

Why do fish take so long to defecate? Fish often take a long time to poop because their digestive systems get clogged up from time to time with the food they ingest. It can take fish several days to digest complex foods, and they don’t poop or pee until digestion is complete.

What color is fish feces?

Fish feces can vary in color because they are made up of waste products that are excreted from the body. Waste products found in fish feces include undigested food particles, salt and bacteria.

Aside from different colors, fish feces can vary in texture, volume, and smell. Normally, the fish droppings take on the color of the food the fish has been eating for a while.

For example, fish fed flakes in the aquarium usually produce reddish stools because flake foods contain many mosquito larvae.

Fish fed peas typically shed greenish feces. The darker the peas, the greener the color of the droppings. Sometimes extremely dry fish food can cause long, trailing droppings that are somehow compacted.

When a fish is starving, the color of the faeces can be whitish and clear, and in some cases it can appear brown.

How often do fish defecate?

Fish usually poop as often as they can or when there is an urgent or necessary need to remove waste material from their intestines. If you feed your fish similar amounts of food on a regular basis, they will poop with the same regular frequency.

Fish that are constantly fed poop at least every 48 hours. Those who are not fed regularly poop infrequently and their poop is often delayed. In many cases, starved fish will not poop for up to 4 days.

Peeing is more constant than pooping for most fish. Fish pee almost every day depending on how well their kidneys are working. Fish also poop less when they’re sick, but you don’t have to worry about checking their bowel movements when they’re not sick.

Is fish poop good for plants?

Fish poop is good for certain plants, like the coral reef, which need nutrients, sunlight, and clear, warm water to survive. There aren’t enough nutrients in the water for coral reefs to survive, but they get enough from fish piss and droppings.

For example, when the fish pee or poop in the water, the coral reef waves their tentacles around so their tiny arms can grab the pee and poop and then suck up their nutrients. A number of other aquatic plants collect nutrients in a similar way.

Aquatic plants and corals can obtain important nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from the urine of the fish. It is the nutrient from this pee that helps corals grow slowly.

Algae are another type of plant known to absorb nutrients from fish urine and feces. Algae are known to convert certain nutrients in fish urine and feces into sugars.

What is the name of fish faeces?

Although many people will refer to fish feces as “detritus,” it’s actually a general scientific term for the dead specific organic matter that comes from fish. It may contain the fragments of dead matter of fish organisms as well as the fecal materials of fish.

In the wild, access to food varies, but when fish are raised in a tank, they need constant feeding. The natural instinct of domesticated fish is to eat every time they are fed.

Do betta fish poop?

Want to know if a betta fish poops? The answer is yes! Betta fish poop, but they are picky when it comes to choosing a spot to pee and poop. Betta droppings can be confused with uneaten fish pellets because they tend to be lumpy and round, in contrast to the appearance of other fish’s droppings, which can be long and fibrous.

Betta fish generally poop in the same place and therefore you will see their droppings in one area. This may not be the case if other aquarium inhabitants are disturbing the bottom of the aquarium or if there is turbulence or a strong current in the tank.

Betta fish usually poop near the plant area because they like to keep their privacy when doing so. Because of their private nature, it may be easier to clean up their waste in the tank.

Betta fish have a stomach as big as their eyes. It is recommended to feed them 2-4 pellets once or twice a day. You can help the betta improve its digestive health by not feeding it for a day each week.

How do fish process feces and urine?

Just like humans, fish have kidneys that allow their bodies to produce urine. The shape and size of the kidneys usually depends on the species of fish. Eels, for example, have longer kidneys, while others, like angelfish, have shorter kidneys.

It can take several days for a fish’s digestive tract to process food and this explains why there is a delay in pooping and peeing. Fish need to include a significant amount of fiber in their meals to speed up their metabolism.

Fish droppings and pee and their health

The type of urine and feces that come out of a fish can indicate some health problems. For example, tough stools can be an indication of a parasitic or bacterial infection. In this case, the affected fish must be isolated in a separate tank and treated immediately.

Physical examination is not enough to ensure your fish has a healthy digestive system to support regular pooping. The veterinary examination of the digestive tract helps determine the health of the animal.

Can a fish suffer from constipation?

Have you ever wondered if a fish can suffer from constipation and other problems related to overfeeding?

The appearance of stringy feces clinging to the fish’s body could be an indication that the fish is suffering from constipation.

There are a number of ways you can help a congested fish, especially if it’s not pooping but has a bloated tummy. You should follow the instructions when feeding pellets to the fish. Try to avoid flake food, which can increase the fish’s susceptibility to constipation.

Prolonged overfeeding will eventually expand the fish’s digestive tract, which can put pressure on the swim bladder. This will eventually cause problems with swimming.

Dealing with irregular pooping and peeing in fish

Maintaining a regular defecating and peeing time in a fish starts with maintaining an optimal metabolism. You can help the fish maintain a healthy metabolism by increasing the favorable feeding conditions in the tank.

It is important that you keep the water temperature between 26 and 25°C as colder temperatures are known to slow down the metabolism of fish.

It’s important to help your fish fast for a full day each week. This has a number of health benefits, particularly in terms of improving digestion. It can also help treat constipation in overfed fish.

Improve aquarium flaring by placing a mirror near the tank. Some species of fish have been known to poop when flaring is encouraged. You might want to add a second compatible fish to the tank instead of placing a mirror near the tank; In this case, you may need to increase the tank size.

If fasting doesn’t help a congested fish, you can replace the flakes with a pea diet. You should put the pea in some hot water for about 2 minutes and then put the pea in cold water until it gets cool.

You should feed the fish half a thawed frozen pea daily when the fish is not pooping. It is believed that feeding peas helps the fish poop within 24 hours.

Increasing the dietary fiber content is one of the best possible ways to improve defecation behavior. Increasing the moisture content in the fish feed is also important. Some brands don’t contain enough fiber and moisture.

You must check flake and freeze-dried fish food for the correct fiber content before purchasing it for your fish. You may want to feed your fish peas every 7-10 days to improve their digestive health.

Tips for removing fish waste from the tank

It is important to remove fish droppings from an aquarium to avoid such materials harming the fish. Fish feces contain colonies of bacteria, parasites and fungi that mix with new food and can be ingested by the fish.

The fish then automatically becomes a living host for such parasites, causing serious health problems that can lead to the death of the fish.

Fish droppings usually settle to the bottom of the tank until removed. Fish droppings can also settle on the surface of aquarium plants. You should consider adding a filter to reduce the volume of waste in the tank, but don’t use too many filters as you want to avoid killing fry.

First of all, you need to turn off all electrical components in the aquarium, especially the filter and heater. You should also turn off the air pump.

Use the algae scraper (link to Amazon) to clean the side of the aquarium. Some of the fish excrement can get caught on the algae.

Your next step is to remove between 40% and 50% of the water in the tank using a gravel vacuum (link to Amazon) that draws the water into a bucket.

You can also use the vacuum cleaner to suck as much dirt out of the aquarium as possible. The debris includes fish droppings and fish food residue.

You may want to clean the decorations and appliances, especially those that have built up with fish droppings or food scraps.

You can’t get rid of all of the poo at once, but subsequent changes to the tank water will eventually help remove fecal debris. Remember that you need to replace 15% of the aquarium water daily, but weekly cleaning and fish droppings removal will require you to replace up to 50% of the aquarium water.

You also need to remember that the spare tap water needs to be prepared before adding it to the tank. Tap water contains chlorine and chloramine, which can harm fish. You can prepare your water either by boiling it for about 2 hours or by letting it sit overnight (for about 24 hours).

Make sure to add the fresh water slowly while the fish has been separated into a fish bag. When the water exchange is complete, simply pour some of the new water into the fish bag and let the fish sit in it for about 20 minutes before pouring the water in the bag into the aquarium next to the fish.

You can turn everything back on when the water change is complete. Remember that removing fish droppings from the aquarium should be a weekly process. Don’t neglect to clean the outside part of the tank after cleaning the inside.

Wipe the outside with a clean damp cloth and avoid water stains. Tank owners often ignore the need to clean the outside of the tank, but there is a high chance of introducing germs into the aquarium from the outside. Make sure the outer part of the tank stays dry at all times.

A Pacific Sand Lance shown here employs a unique strategy of burrowing into sand to rest and conserve energy and to ward off predators.

The nature of fish “sleep” is an area of ​​active research. While fish don’t sleep like land mammals, most fish do rest.

Research shows that fish can reduce their activity and metabolism while remaining alert to danger. Some fish swim in place, others wedge themselves in a safe spot in mud or coral, and some even find a suitable nest. These periods of “interrupted animation” can serve the same restorative functions as sleep in humans.

Why is my fish spitting out the food? In this article, we will list some of the reasons that can cause this problem.

Fish can put food in their mouth and spit it out for a variety of reasons. The simplest answer is that your fish may not accept the food simply because they don’t like it. Keep in mind that you don’t want to eat the same thing every day, so they may also want to have a varied diet. Below we will list some reasons that can cause this problem in your fish.

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Most fish are not fastidious eaters and will gobble up any type of food you offer them.

However, a fish can spit out the food if it doesn’t like it. Try a different type of feed. There are different types on the market such as flakes, pellets and freeze dried. Above all, a varied diet is the key to keeping the fish healthy.

mouth problems

Many fish like to nibble on the bottom of the aquarium and suck up any algae that may have stuck to it.

See also:

In some cases, these small pebbles of substrate can get stuck in the fish’s mouth and it may not be able to spit it out. In this case, eating can become a very difficult task. Goldfish, for example, are the champions in this regard due to their largest mouths, but we recommend that you do not remove the stone yourself, but rather have it done by a vet you trust.

branching problems

Fish have to bend their gills when they eat. Various gill parasites can impede this movement and they spit out food.

In addition, some external signs, such as a slimy layer or spots, can be signs of parasites on the animal’s body. Examine your fish carefully to determine if treatment is needed.

infections or diseases

Lethargic or slow-swimming fish may spit out food because they are too tired to eat. Examine the aquarium and see if it is the only fish not eating or if several others are also showing the same symptoms as it may be necessary to separate them in a quarantine tank.

water quality / stress

When a fish is under stress, it may eat less than normal. Stress comes from having other fish chasing you all the time. This also occurs when the water conditions are not favorable for the animal’s health. Check that the filter and pump are clean and working properly.

Clean the aquarium and gravel and do a partial water change to remove excess ammonia. Also, run tests in the water to check nitrate, nitrite, and pH levels.

Adjusting these levels and changing the water weekly, as well as keeping the pumps and filters clean, will help keep your fish healthy and consequently not having any feeding difficulties.

How is your experience with it? Do you have any other tips as to why the fish are spitting out food?

If you notice your betta fish spitting up food, you may be worried, especially if you are a new betta owner. In many cases, however, this is not a cause for concern. Read on to find out the various reasons behind this.

Why does your betta spit out food? (most common reason)

The most common reason your betta spits out food is simply that it’s too big. Your betta’s stomach is about the size of its eyeball, and some pellets are even larger. So in many cases your betta will spit the food out a few times because he literally can’t swallow it. However, this does not mean that he does not eat. Sometimes he takes small bites out of the food.

While it may appear to spit out the food, it actually breaks off small pieces, making the main part more digestible. Although this is the most common reason, it is not the only reason. Here are some more common causes.

(Also find out if your betta can eat goldfish food!)

He may have a digestive problem

If you notice your Betta fish spitting up food or just not eating, it may have digestive issues. This is very common in bettas and is not usually a cause for concern.

In most cases, it will be constipation that your betta is suffering from. If you think it’s constipation, you’ll also notice other symptoms, such as: B. your betta not being able to defecate.

To treat constipation it is usually best to fast your betta for 2-3 days before feeding it daphnia. (Read the full guide to constipation or more information on why water fleas are so good for bettas!)

You may have a juvenile Betta

If you just bought your betta, it may still be a juvenile. When young, they are usually fed only live food. So if you feed them pellets or flakes, there can be two problems. The first problem is that your betta just isn’t used to eating pellet or flake food.

The other thing may be that the food is just too big at the moment. If you think either of the two is the case, you should try mixing the food until you find something your betta will eat. Once you find something, he’ll slowly start incorporating new foods into his diet as he gets bigger until he’s ready to eat anything.

(Check out your best live food choices.)

It can be a parasite

Although rare, bettas can occasionally end up with parasites in their stomachs. These parasites can prevent your betta from eating properly. Even when hungry, he may not be able to swallow food, so he just spits it out instead.

However, the chances of it being a parasite are much lower than something less sinister. But if you think your betta has a parasite, consider placing it in a quarantine tank. This way he will not contaminate your aquarium and infect other fish.

If you think your betta may be suffering from a parasite, you will usually have other symptoms as well, such as: B. Trouble swimming.

(Check out the Ultimate Betta Feeding Guide.)

Finicky/silly Betta

Sometimes your betta is just finicky or stupid. He may not be aware that what you are feeding him is actually food, or if he is aware he has decided he doesn’t want it. Aside from the food being too large, this is usually the most common reason your betta will spit out food.

Usually, if you think that’s the case, you just have to feed him what you have. He may not eat it at first, but the hungrier he gets, the more likely he will eat it.

Remember, if your betta doesn’t eat within 10 minutes, you should remove it from your tank. If you don’t remove it from the tank, it will begin to break down, resulting in an ammonia spike.

Luckily, if your betta is a picky eater, there is plenty of food available for him. Check out the best food for betta fish!

Final Thoughts

If you notice your betta spitting out food then in most cases it really is nothing to worry about. Chances are the food is either too big to eat in one go (in which case it may be worth slicing) or because they’re being stupid or picky.

However, it could be a sign of something worse. You should keep an eye on your Betta to make sure it isn’t an illness like constipation or a parasite. If you think it’s either, you should start treating your betta as best you can and placing it in a quarantine tank if you think it’s a parasite.

If you notice your betta spitting up food, don’t stress yourself right away, especially if it’s new or young. Chances are it’s nothing to worry about!

And if you want to learn more about what bettas can eat, be sure to check out this article on the best food for bettas! It will give you a deep knowledge of the different types of food. As well as what to buy and what to avoid!

If you notice your betta still not eating, read this handy article that details all the different reasons your betta avoids their food! And here’s one to let you know if you can feed your betta goldfish food)

If you need a proper guide to caring for your betta fish, click here for a comprehensive article on betta fish care!

Does your betta live alone?

If so, then you might be interested in learning more about many tankmates that can live with them. So check out the Ultimate Betta Tank Mate Guide, which will teach you about 68 different tank mates that can live with your betta, as well as fish to avoid. You’ll also learn how to create the perfect environment for buddies, how to introduce tankmates, and more! So check it out!

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out the rest of the site! And if you have more questions, you can ask them in the Q&A section!

Why is water quality such a big issue in aquaristics?

Why is water quality such a big issue in aquaristics?

When Culum Brown was a young boy, he and his grandmother used to visit a park near their home in Melbourne, Australia. He was fascinated by the park’s large ornamental pond, which meandered with goldfish, mosquitofish, and loaches. Brown walked around the pond and peered into the clear shallows to study the fish. One day he and his grandmother came to the park to find that the pond had been drained – something the park authorities seem to do every few years. Piles of fish fluttered onto the exposed bed, suffocating in the sun.

Brown rushed from one trash can to the next, searching them and picking up any discarded containers he could find — mostly plastic soda bottles. He filled the bottles at drinking fountains and caged several fish at each one. He pushed other stranded fish into areas of the pond where some water remained. “I was out of my mind, running around like a madman trying to save these animals,” recalls Brown, who is now a marine biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney. Ultimately, he managed to save hundreds of fish, of which he adopted about 60. Some of them lived in its home aquariums for more than 10 years.

I also kept fish as a child. My very first pets were two goldfish, bright as freshly minted pennies, in an unadorned glass bowl the size of a honeydew melon. They died within a few weeks. I later upgraded to a 40 liter tank lined with rainbow gravel and a few plastic plants. Inside I kept a variety of small fish: neon tetras banded in fluorescent blues and reds, guppies with bold, billowing tails like solar flares, and glass catfish so translucent they resembled no more than silver-topped spines darting through the water. Most of these fish lived much longer than the goldfish, but some of them had a habit of jumping straight through the gaps in the tank cover onto the living room floor in ecstatic arcs. My family and I found her behind the TV, covered in dust and fluff.

Should we care how Pisces feels? In his 1789 treatise An Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation, the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham – who developed the theory of utilitarianism (essentially the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals) – articulated an idea that fueled debates about Animal welfare has been central ever since. When considering our ethical obligations to other animals, Bentham wrote, the most important question is not, “Can they think rationally?” still, can you speak? but, can they suffer?” Conventional wisdom has long maintained that fish cannot—that they feel no pain. An exchange in a 1977 issue of Field & Stream illustrates the typical argument. In response to a 13-year-old girl’s letter about whether fish suffer when caught, writer and fisherman Ed Zern initially accused her of having a parent or teacher write the letter because it was so well written. He then explains that “fish don’t feel pain like you do when you skin your knee or stub your toe or have a toothache because their nervous system is much simpler. I’m not sure if they feel pain the way we feel pain, but they probably feel a kind of ‘fish pain’.” Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what primitive condition they’re suffering because it’s all part of the big food chain, and besides: “If anything or anyone ever stops us from fishing, we will suffer terribly.”

This logic is still widespread today. In 2014, BBC Newsnight invited Penn State University biologist Victoria Braithwaite to discuss fish pain and welfare with Bertie Armstrong, Chair of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. Armstrong dismissed the notion that fish deserve welfare laws as “capricious” and insisted that “the balance of scientific evidence is that fish don’t feel pain like we do”.

That’s not entirely true, says Braithwaite. It is impossible to know definitively whether another living being’s subjective experience corresponds to our own. But that is beside the point. We don’t know if cats, dogs, experimental animals, chickens and cattle feel pain the same way we do, yet we give them increasingly humane treatment and legal protections because they have demonstrated their capacity to suffer. Over the past 15 years, Braithwaite and other fish biologists around the world have provided substantial evidence that, like mammals and birds, fish consciously feel pain. “More and more people are willing to accept the facts,” says Braithwaite. “Fish feel pain. It’s probably different than what people feel, but it’s still a kind of pain.”

At an anatomical level, fish have neurons known as nociceptors that sense potential damage such as high temperatures, intense pressure, and harsh chemicals. Fish produce the same opioids – the body’s own painkillers – as mammals. And their brain activity during injury is analogous to that of terrestrial vertebrates: poking a needle into goldfish or rainbow trout just behind their gills stimulates nociceptors and a cascade of electrical activity that rushes to brain regions essential for conscious sensory perception (such as the cerebellum, tectum and telencephalon), not just the hindbrain and brainstem, which are responsible for reflexes and impulses.

Pisces also behave in ways that suggest they are consciously experiencing pain. In one study, researchers dropped groups of colorful Lego bricks into tanks of rainbow trout. Trout usually avoid an unfamiliar object suddenly introduced into their environment in case it is dangerous. But when scientists gave rainbow trout a painful injection of acetic acid, they were much less likely to exhibit this defensive behavior, presumably because they were distracted from their own suffering. In contrast, fish injected with both acid and morphine maintained their usual caution. Like all analgesics, morphine dulls the sensation of pain but does nothing to eliminate the source of pain itself, suggesting that fish behavior reflects their mental state and not just their physiology. If the fish reacted reflexively to the presence of caustic acid instead of consciously feeling pain, then the morphine should not have made a difference.

In another study, rainbow trout that had acetic acid injected into their lips began to breathe faster, rocked back and forth on the bottom of the tank, rubbed their lips on the gravel and side of the tank, and took more than twice as long to breathe Resume feeding like fish injected with benign saline. Fish injected with both acid and morphine also exhibited some of these unusual behaviors, but to a much lesser extent, while fish injected with saline never behaved oddly.

A few years ago, Lynne Sneddon, a University of Liverpool biologist and one of the world’s leading experts on fish pain, began conducting a series of particularly fascinating experiments; So far, only some of the results have been published. In one test, she had zebrafish choose between two aquariums: one completely sterile, the other with gravel, a plant, and views of other fish. They consistently preferred to spend time in the livelier, decorated chamber. However, when some fish were injected with acid and the dreary tank was flooded with painkilling lidocaine, they changed their preference and left the enriched tank. Sneddon repeated this study with one change: instead of flooding the boring aquarium with painkillers, she injected it directly into the fish’s bodies so they could take it with them wherever they swam. The fish stayed behind between the gravel and the green.

The collective evidence is now robust enough that biologists and veterinarians are increasingly accepting fish pain as a reality. “It’s changed so much,” says Sneddon, reflecting on her experiences with both scientists and the general public. “In 2003, when I was lecturing, I asked, ‘Who thinks fish can feel pain?’ It only went up a hand or two. Now you ask the room and pretty much everyone puts their hands up.” In 2013, the American Veterinary Medical Association released new guidelines for animal euthanasia that included the following statements: “Suggestions that fish responses to pain represent merely simple reflexes have been discarded refuted. … the overwhelming body of evidence collected supports the position that finfish should be given the same considerations as terrestrial vertebrates in terms of pain relief.”

However, this scientific consensus has not penetrated the public perception. Google “do fish feel pain” and you’ll find yourself in a morass of conflicting messages. They don’t, says one headline. They do, says another. Other sources claim that a confused debate rages between scientists. In truth, that level of ambiguity and disagreement no longer exists in the scientific community. In 2016, Brian Key, a professor at the University of Queensland, published an article entitled “Why fish do not feel pain” in Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling. So far, Key’s article has elicited more than 40 responses from scientists around the world, almost all of whom disagree with his conclusions.

Key is one of the most vocal critics of the idea that fish can suffer consciously; the other is James D. Rose, a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Wyoming and an avid angler who has written for the pro-angler publication Angling Matters. The thrust of their argument is that the studies claiming to show pain in fish are poorly designed and, more fundamentally, that fish lack a brain complex enough to produce a subjective experience of pain. In particular, they point out that fish don’t have the kind of large, dense, wavy cerebral cortices that humans, primates, and certain other mammals have. The cortex, which envelops the rest of the brain like bark, is thought to be crucial for sensory perception and consciousness.

Some of the critiques published by Key and Rose are valid, particularly regarding methodological flaws. Some studies in the growing literature on pain in fish do not properly distinguish between a reflexive response to injury and a probable experience of pain, and some researchers have overstated the importance of these flawed efforts. However, such studies are currently in the minority. Many experiments have confirmed the early work of Braithwaite and Sneddon.

Furthermore, the notion that fish don’t have the cerebral complexity to feel pain is decidedly antiquated. Scientists agree that most, if not all, vertebrates (as well as some invertebrates) are conscious, and that a cerebral cortex as swollen as our own is not a prerequisite for a subjective experience of the world. The planet contains a multitude of brains, dense and spongy, globose and oblong, as small as poppies and as big as watermelons; Different lineages of animals have independently conjured up similar mental abilities from vastly different neural machines. A spirit doesn’t have to be human to suffer.

Despite the evidence of conscious suffering in fish, they are not typically afforded the legal protections afforded to livestock, laboratory animals and pets in many countries around the world. The UK has some of the most advanced animal welfare legislation, typically covering all non-human vertebrates. In Canada and Australia, animal welfare laws are fragmented and vary from one state or province to another; Some protect fish, some don’t. Japan’s relevant legislation largely neglects fish. China has very few substantive animal welfare laws of any kind. And in the United States, the Animal Welfare Act protects most warm-blooded animals used in research and sold as pets, but excludes fish, amphibians, and reptiles. But the sheer number of fish killed for food and farmed for pet stores dwarfs the corresponding numbers of mammals, birds and reptiles. About 70 billion terrestrial animals are killed for food worldwide every year. This number includes chickens, other poultry, and all types of livestock. In contrast, an estimated 10 to 100 billion farmed fish are killed worldwide each year and another 1 to 3 trillion fish are caught in the wild. The number of fish killed each year far exceeds the number of people who have ever walked the earth.

“For the most part, we thought of fish as very alien and very simple, so we didn’t care how we killed them,” says Braithwaite. “If we look at trawl nets, it’s a pretty gruesome way fish die: the barometric trauma of being yanked out of the ocean and then slowly suffocating. Can we do this more humanely? Yes. Should we? Probably yes. We mostly don’t do it at the moment because it’s more expensive to kill fish humanely, especially in the wild.”

**********

In some countries, such as the UK and Norway, fish farms have largely adopted humane slaughter methods. Instead of suffocating fish in air – the simplest and most historically common practice – or freezing them to death in ice water or poisoning them with carbon dioxide, they render fish unconscious with either a quick blow to the head or powerful electrical currents to pierce their brains Or let them bleed out. In Norway, Hanne Digre and her colleagues at the research organization SINTEF have piloted these techniques on commercial fishing vessels to see if humane slaughter is possible at sea.

In a series of experiments, Digre and her colleagues tested different slaughter methods in the open sea on a variety of species. They found that cod and haddock stored in drying bins on ships after harvesting remained conscious for at least two hours. An electric shock immediately after fish were placed on a ship could knock them unconscious, but only if the current was strong enough. If the electric shock was too weak, the fish were simply immobilized. Some species, like pollock, tended to snap their spines and bleed internally when shocked; others, like cod, had far fewer problems. Some fish regained consciousness about 10 minutes after being stunned, so the researchers recommend cutting their throats within 30 seconds of being electrocuted.

In the United States, two brothers are pioneering a new way of humane fishing. In the fall of 2016, Michael and Patrick Burns, both longtime fishermen and ranchers, launched a unique fishing vessel called the Blue North. The 58 meter long boat, capable of transporting around 750 tons and a crew of 26, specializes in harvesting Pacific cod from the Bering Sea. The crew works in an air-conditioned room in the center of the boat, which contains a moon pool – a hole through which they pull fish one at a time. This sanctuary protects the crew from the elements and gives them far more control over the fishing than they would on a regular vessel. Within seconds of bringing a fish to the surface, the crew moves it to a stunning table, which renders the animal unconscious with around 10 volts DC. The fish are then bled.

The Burns brothers were originally inspired by pioneering research into humane livestock slaughterhouses conducted by Temple Grandin, professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University and internationally renowned spokesman on autism. By considering the perspectives of the animals themselves, Grandin’s innovative designs have significantly reduced stress, panic and injury in cattle being herded to a slaughterhouse, while making the entire process more efficient for the ranchers. “One day it occurred to me, why can’t we apply some of these principles to the fishing industry? Michael remembers. Inspired by moonpools found on Norwegian fishing vessels and the use of electrical stunning in various forms of animal husbandry, they designed Blue North. Michael believes his new vessel is one of maybe two vessels in the world consistently using electrical stunning on wild-caught fish. “We believe that fish are sentient beings, that they experience panic and stress,” he says. “We have developed a method to stop this.”

The Burns brothers currently export the cod they catch to Japan, China, France, Spain, Denmark and Norway. The fact that the fish is humanely harvested wasn’t a huge draw for their core buyers, says Michael, but he expects that to change. He and his team have spoken to various animal welfare organizations to develop new standards and certifications for humanely caught wild fish. “It’s getting more common,” says Michael. “A lot of people out there are concerned about where their food comes from and how it’s treated.” Now, the vast majority of the trillions of fish slaughtered annually are killed in ways that are likely to cause them immense pain. The truth is that even the introduction of humane slaughter methods in more advanced countries was not entirely, or even primarily, ethically motivated. Rather, such changes are profit-driven. Studies have shown that reducing stress in farmed and captured fish, killing them quickly and efficiently with minimal struggle improves the quality of the meat that eventually makes it to market. The flesh of fish that has been humanely killed is often smoother and less blotchy. When we treat fish well, we’re not really doing it for them; we do it for our. ********** “I’ve always had a natural empathy for animals and had no reason to exclude fish,” says Brown. “At that park [in Melbourne] they had no concerns that there were fish and they might need some water. There was no attempt to save her or house her. That shocked me at that age, and I still see that kind of callous disregard for Pisces in people today in all sorts of contexts. Since we first discovered evidence of pain in fish, I don’t think the public perception has changed one bit.” Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time at my local pet shops observing the fish. They move restlessly and silently, striding from one side of their shell to the other without legs. Some hang in the water with their heads held high, as if caught on an invisible line. A glitter of scales catches my attention; an unexpected splash of color. I try to face one – a depthless disk of obsidian. His mouth moves mechanically, like a sliding door stuck in a loop. I look at these fish, I enjoy looking at them, I wish them no harm; yet I almost never wonder what they’re thinking or feeling. Fish are our direct evolutionary ancestors. They are the original vertebrates, the scaly, short-limbed pioneers that crawled out of the sea and colonized the land while still wet. So many abysses separate us now: geographically, anatomically, psychologically. We can rationalize the overwhelming evidence that fish are sentient. But the facts are not enough. To really feel sorry for a Pisces seems to require an Olympic feat of empathy. However, perhaps our typical interactions with fish—the peaceful pet in a puddle of glass or the garnished fillet on a plate—are too limited to reveal a capacity for suffering. I recently learned of a culinary tradition still practiced today known as ikizukuri: eating the raw flesh of a live fish. You can find videos online. In one instance, a cook covers a fish’s face with a cloth and holds it in place while shaving off its scales with something like a coarse cheese grater. He begins slicing the fish lengthways with a large knife, but the creature violently jumps out of his grasp and rolls over into a nearby sink. The cook retrieves the fish and proceeds to cut off both of its flanks. Blood as dark as pomegranate juice spurts out. He dunks the fish in a bowl of ice water while he prepares the sashimi. The whole fish is served on a plate with shaved radish and shiso leaves, rectangular chunks of its meat neatly stacked in its hollowed-out side, its mouth and gills still flapping and the occasional shudder spreading the length of its body. Related stories from Hakai Magazine: The Secret History of Bioluminescence It’s really the little things in life The Moon Sea

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Wait. What?

If fish can only live underwater, how can fish drown? It seems like a simple yes/no question, but in fact many things can go wrong that would deprive a fish of its ability to breathe properly, to the point where the fish could suffocate and “drown” due to the oxygen levels in the water , other unstable water parameters, parasites and diseases, or even poor selective breeding.

Read on to learn everything you need to know about how oxygen is dissolved in water, how fish breathe, and what can cause a fish to drown.

dissolved oxygen

In order to understand how oxygen levels in the water affect fish, it is important to study how oxygen gets from the air to the water in the first place. Dissolved Oxygen (DO) is the scientific measurement used to determine how much oxygen is in water and ready for living organisms to use. Dissolved oxygen is affected by many factors including depth, temperature, atmospheric exchange, external sources, and photosynthesis.

depth and temperature

Cold water contains more dissolved oxygen and warm water contains less dissolved oxygen. This means that at low surface water temperatures (as long as the exchange between air and water is not impeded by ice) the concentration of dissolved oxygen is high; When surface water temperatures are high, the dissolved oxygen concentration is low.

Seasons of the year, as well as elevation and latitude, have a major impact on how much dissolved oxygen is actually available in the water column. Salinity also affects freshwater concentrations compared to saltwater systems. This is one of the main reasons for concern that the earth’s average temperature is rising; As the atmosphere warms, surface water also warms, slowing oxygen exchange. Those organisms that require oxygen to survive may face declining dissolved oxygen levels.

Atmospheric exchange

So how does oxygen get into the water column in the first place? One of the main ways oxygen enters the water column is through surface exchange. This is largely due to the mixing of water with the oxygen in the air caused by wind and waves. This means that highly turbulent rivers usually have higher dissolved oxygen concentrations than stagnant lakes.

External Sources

However, these rivers eventually drain into larger bodies of water, bringing with them the dissolved oxygen and affecting the naturally occurring concentrations in those areas. Some of these streams are additionally fed by groundwater, which will also affect dissolved oxygen concentrations.

photosynthesis

Just as trees photosynthesize, aquatic plants and vegetation convert carbon dioxide into oxygen while processing their own food. An autotrophic plankton called phytoplankton is particularly important for its contribution to dissolved oxygen levels by photosynthesizing in surface waters during the day.

breathing

Those organisms that do not engage in photosynthesis instead undergo respiration, which converts oxygen into carbon dioxide. This includes fish, snails, crabs, as well as the same phytoplankton we talked about before!

One of the largest groups using respiration is bacteria. When minerals and nutrients enter a system, algae and other photosynthetic organisms begin to thrive in these eutrophic conditions; This is usually caused by runoff of fertilizers and other nutrient-rich solutions entering an ecosystem unnaturally. The algae can become so dense that the water is tinted green, blocking all light from entering through the first few inches of water. This eventually causes aquatic plants to starve due to their inability to photosynthesize.

At the same time, the algae begin to die off as the excess nutrients are absorbed and broken down from the water. At this point, bacteria begin to break down the decaying algae and other vegetation. Because there is so much of this food to keep the bacterial population thriving, the numbers increase and so does respiration, causing the oxygen levels in the breath to decrease. When this oxygen level decreases rapidly, the water becomes anoxic.

With such a lack of oxygen, as a rule, all organisms that need oxygen to survive die. These areas become known as dead zones where aquatic life cannot be supported.

How fish breathe

Fish have gills that allow the fish to breathe. These gills are an extensive network of blood-filled capillaries that provide a large surface area for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. It should be noted that there are fish and invertebrates that can breathe both in and out of the water, but we will not go into the physiology of these species in this article. For typical fish:

First, fish take in oxygen through their mouths. They then create pressure in their mouths, which causes the water to traverse the thin layers of gills. The dissolved oxygen diffuses into the bloodstream because the oxygen concentrations in the blood are lower than in the surrounding water. Carbon dioxide is also expelled back into the water through the gills.

But what happens when the fish is pulled backwards like a fishing line and cannot take water through its mouth?

Can sharks swim backwards?

You may have heard that sharks have to swim constantly to breathe. While some species are exceptions to this rule and like other fish can breathe, it is generally true and sharks will suffocate if there is no fresh inflow of water through their gills. But can a shark swim backwards?

Sharks are the only species of fish that cannot swim backwards, mainly due to the structure of their pectoral fins, which cannot change their curvature. However, if they could swim backwards – or were pulled onto shore by a fisherman – they would likely suffocate as well.

Gills are designed to expel and process water, not take in water. The backward movement would result in water being forced over the gills, interfering with the normal breathing process and ultimately causing the fish to be unable to breathe, eventually leading to ‘drowning’.

The Simple Answer: Can Fish Drown?

Yes, fish can “drown” – for lack of a better word. However, it is better to think of it as a form of asphyxiation where the oxygen levels are too low or the fish is unable to properly draw oxygen from the water for one reason or another. In the following sections, we’ll go further into the reasons why fish can drown.

The long answer

If you’re looking for information on why your aquarium fish may have drowned, then we need to look at what can cause oxygen starvation in the water column. We will look at algal blooms, poor water conditions, disease and parasites, and body changes.

eutrophication and algal blooms

As we discussed earlier, an excess of nutrients can cause algal blooms, which in turn increase bacterial populations that deplete the oxygen levels in the water. If there isn’t enough oxygen in the water to breathe, they slowly suffocate.

Some of the worst harmful algal blooms (HAB) are usually a species of bacteria called cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, which can actually be dangerous to humans; Note that not all algal blooms are harmful in the sense that they lead to toxic conditions. However, the surrounding water can easily become contaminated and cause disease when consumed or swam in.

In these surrounding areas, shellfish can also filter food through the water and retain toxins that are present. Eating these shellfish can lead to paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), and anyone with possible symptoms should seek medical attention immediately.

One of the most notorious dead zones is at the mouth of the Mississippi River. This is the result of fertilizers from agricultural centers along the river being washed away until they concentrate at the beginning of the Gulf of Mexico. Many fisheries, shrimp farms and oyster farms have suffered from this hypoxic water that does not have enough oxygen available for healthy conditions.

water conditions

Why can’t you add a fish to a freshly run tank? If you don’t know the answer to this question, we recommend reading our guide to aquarium cycling here.

You may not know, but you may not know the exact reasons why an uncycled tank can be so detrimental to a new fish. One of the main problems is that a new tank goes through a water cycle, starting with ammonia – remember that ammonia can also rise when the tank is overfilled. If ammonia is present in the water column at all, all fish can be subject to ammonia poisoning.

Ammonia can burn your fish, making the gills look like they’re bleeding. This spotting will eventually spread to the rest of the body. At the same time, you can see how the fish are gasping on the surface of the water, not having an appetite and lying on the bottom of the tank. If the fish stays in these water conditions for too long, it cannot get the oxygen it needs, resulting in the fish drowning.

After ammonia comes nitrite, another deadly parameter that can quickly kill your fish. Once the fish has been released, nitrite enters the bloodstream and binds to hemoglobin where oxygen should have adhered, causing the fish to painfully suffocate and drown.

parasites and diseases

Fish need gills to breathe dissolved oxygen, but what happens when those gills have been damaged by parasites or disease? Unfortunately, the gills are a very common area where both internal and external parasites are found in/on fish. Most of these parasites belong to the class Monogenea, which includes flatworms that are commonly found on the skin or in the gills.

One slimy parasite is the gill fluke (genus Dactylogyrus) that attaches primarily to members of the Cyprinidae family such as goldfish, koi, and carp. These flukes are initially free-swimming and then, after several hours, must find a host to survive. This usually causes inflamed gills and can cause irritation leading to the fish scratching its gills on hard surfaces. The fish can also have trouble breathing properly, become lethargic, and have a loss of appetite.

Unfortunately, many fish succumb to these parasites as they are highly contagious and multiply rapidly. Most fish are either further weakened by other bacterial or fungal infections through scratching and inflammation, or are unable to extract enough oxygen from the water, causing the fish to drown.

Even more common in aquarium fish are ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis), which lodge in the gills and can have long-lasting effects if the fish survives.

Fish can also drown due to other factors such as bacterial or fungal infections. A problem faced by many salmon fisheries is bacterial gill disease (BGD); Interestingly, this is believed to be unique to the commercial industry and has not yet affected wild fish populations.

These bacteria in particular, Flavobacterium branchiophilum and F. succinicans, cause fish to become lethargic, experience a loss of appetite and be less responsive to external stimuli. Exposed fish also tend to position themselves directly in the flow of the new water, indicating increased oxygen demand. Without treatment, the fish can die if the bacteria overpopulate and not enough oxygen gets through the gills successfully.

Another similar bacterial infection is amoebic gill disease (AGD), which can also cause fish to drown.

body modifications

Some of the most beautiful fish in the aquarium trade have been selectively bred to express the most desirable body modifications, which unfortunately can cause the fish to drown. A great and sad example of this is the betta.

Betta fish are a special fish to consider when breathing. These fish have a special organ called the labyrinth organ that allows them to reach the surface of the water and swallow atmospheric air. This organ is believed to have evolved from the need for more oxygen in water with low oxygen levels. Betta fish, like other fish, can draw oxygen from the water via gills.

Betta fish species with long tails also have the ability to reach the surface of the water to gasp for air and suck in water through their gills. However, these fish have been bred so excessively that their tails drag them down, making it difficult to surface to breathe air or swim at all. Because of this, these fish become exhausted and usually lean against the side of a decoration or the bottom of the aquarium.

If there is little water movement in the tank, the oxygen will be depleted quickly and your fish will have trouble breathing and cannot get extra air. When the fish has absorbed as much oxygen as possible from the water column through its gills and still cannot swim to the surface for air, the fish will drown.

If you are looking for a betta fish, make sure you research as much information as possible to prevent this from happening. If you already have a long-tailed Betta fish, provide adequate water movement (without making it difficult for the fish to swim) and keep the water well-oxygenated. If you would like more information on how excessive finning can lead to drowning, check out our Rosetail Betta Downside of Beauty here.

Conclusion

Can fish drown? Absolutely. And it’s definitely not a pleasant experience when your fish are drowning.

Keep dissolved oxygen levels high in your aquarium by having plenty of water movement and exchange with air at the surface. Maintain water levels, watch out for parasites and diseases, and avoid fish with altered bodies, and hopefully you won’t have to experience what happens when fish drown.

If you have additional questions about why fish need oxygen, how fish can drown, or how air interacts with water, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!

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dr Naomi Lavelle answers a weekly science question.

Fish live their entire lives in water, but does that mean they never get thirsty or drink at all?

To answer this question, we need to look at where the fish live.

freshwater fish

We all need water for our survival; We drink it to maintain certain balances in our bodies, mainly a balance between water and salt.

Freshwater fish don’t drink much water at all, at least not like we do. They don’t take in much water through their mouths, otherwise they would risk thinning their blood and upsetting the salt-water balance in their bodies. Freshwater fish have higher salt concentrations in their blood and body tissues than in the water around them. They absorb small amounts of water into their bodies through their skin and gills, and then excrete excess water through their urine. The process that allows water to enter your body in this way is called osmosis.

osmosis

Osmosis is the process by which molecules move from a high concentration solution to a low concentration area. These molecules move passively across a semi-permeable membrane (i.e. the process is spontaneous and does not require additional input of energy) to equalize the concentration of the solution on either side of the membrane.

When we apply this to our fish, what it really means is that the water flows through the fish’s skin (the semi-permeable membrane) to dilute the salt in the fish’s body and create a more balanced balance of salt and water between the body and the body Fish and the water in which it lives.

saltwater fish

When fish live in salt water, things are reversed; The salt concentration in the water they live in is higher than the salt concentration in their bodies. Osmosis therefore causes water to leak from their bodies into the water around them. This puts them at constant risk of dehydration, which seems ironic since they live in water.

To compensate for this, the fish must actively drink water through their mouths. They process the water and then produce small amounts of salty urine and excrete salt through specialized cells in their gills.

If they drink, does that mean they get thirsty?

So saltwater fish drink water, does that mean they get thirsty? The answer is still no; Because they live in water, they probably don’t take it as a conscious response to seek and drink water. Thirst is usually defined as a need or desire to drink water. Fish are unlikely to respond to such a driving force.

What about salmon?

Some fish can live in both fresh and salt water; Salmon, for example, transition from freshwater to saltwater and back again at different stages in their life cycle. Their bodies switch from one process to another to cope with the changes in salt concentration. When salmon move from freshwater to saltwater, they start drinking lots of water and reduce the amount of urine they urinate. Specialized cells in their gills pump salt out of their bodies. All of these changes take place over the course of several days, usually while the fish is in the intertidal zone.

When the salmon return to freshwater towards the end of their lives, these transitions are reversed.

You may be wondering how fish poop and pee when there is no visible anus or opening other than their mouth. This article will give you the answer to that question and many others related to fish poop and pee.

How do fish poop and pee? Fish pee and defecate through gills and skin. Some also pee and poop through a small opening known as a pore, located at the back end of the body.

Why do fish take so long to defecate? Fish often take a long time to poop because their digestive systems get clogged up from time to time with the food they ingest. It can take fish several days to digest complex foods, and they don’t poop or pee until digestion is complete.

What color is fish feces?

Fish feces can vary in color because they are made up of waste products that are excreted from the body. Waste products found in fish feces include undigested food particles, salt and bacteria.

Aside from different colors, fish feces can vary in texture, volume, and smell. Normally, the fish droppings take on the color of the food the fish has been eating for a while.

For example, fish fed flakes in the aquarium usually produce reddish stools because flake foods contain many mosquito larvae.

Fish fed peas typically shed greenish feces. The darker the peas, the greener the color of the droppings. Sometimes extremely dry fish food can cause long, trailing droppings that are somehow compacted.

When a fish is starving, the color of the faeces can be whitish and clear, and in some cases it can appear brown.

How often do fish defecate?

Fish usually poop as often as they can or when there is an urgent or necessary need to remove waste material from their intestines. If you feed your fish similar amounts of food on a regular basis, they will poop with the same regular frequency.

Fish that are constantly fed poop at least every 48 hours. Those who are not fed regularly poop infrequently and their poop is often delayed. In many cases, starved fish will not poop for up to 4 days.

Peeing is more constant than pooping for most fish. Fish pee almost every day depending on how well their kidneys are working. Fish also poop less when they’re sick, but you don’t have to worry about checking their bowel movements when they’re not sick.

Is fish poop good for plants?

Fish poop is good for certain plants, like the coral reef, which need nutrients, sunlight, and clear, warm water to survive. There aren’t enough nutrients in the water for coral reefs to survive, but they get enough from fish piss and droppings.

For example, when the fish pee or poop in the water, the coral reef waves their tentacles around so their tiny arms can grab the pee and poop and then suck up their nutrients. A number of other aquatic plants collect nutrients in a similar way.

Aquatic plants and corals can obtain important nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from the urine of the fish. It is the nutrient from this pee that helps corals grow slowly.

Algae are another type of plant known to absorb nutrients from fish urine and feces. Algae are known to convert certain nutrients in fish urine and feces into sugars.

What is the name of fish faeces?

Although many people will refer to fish feces as “detritus,” it’s actually a general scientific term for the dead specific organic matter that comes from fish. It may contain the fragments of dead matter of fish organisms as well as the fecal materials of fish.

In the wild, access to food varies, but when fish are raised in a tank, they need constant feeding. The natural instinct of domesticated fish is to eat every time they are fed.

Do betta fish poop?

Want to know if a betta fish poops? The answer is yes! Betta fish poop, but they are picky when it comes to choosing a spot to pee and poop. Betta droppings can be confused with uneaten fish pellets because they tend to be lumpy and round, in contrast to the appearance of other fish’s droppings, which can be long and fibrous.

Betta fish generally poop in the same place and therefore you will see their droppings in one area. This may not be the case if other aquarium inhabitants are disturbing the bottom of the aquarium or if there is turbulence or a strong current in the tank.

Betta fish usually poop near the plant area because they like to keep their privacy when doing so. Because of their private nature, it may be easier to clean up their waste in the tank.

Betta fish have a stomach as big as their eyes. It is recommended to feed them 2-4 pellets once or twice a day. You can help the betta improve its digestive health by not feeding it for a day each week.

How do fish process feces and urine?

Just like humans, fish have kidneys that allow their bodies to produce urine. The shape and size of the kidneys usually depends on the species of fish. Eels, for example, have longer kidneys, while others, like angelfish, have shorter kidneys.

It can take several days for a fish’s digestive tract to process food and this explains why there is a delay in pooping and peeing. Fish need to include a significant amount of fiber in their meals to speed up their metabolism.

Fish droppings and pee and their health

The type of urine and feces that come out of a fish can indicate some health problems. For example, tough stools can be an indication of a parasitic or bacterial infection. In this case, the affected fish must be isolated in a separate tank and treated immediately.

Physical examination is not enough to ensure your fish has a healthy digestive system to support regular pooping. The veterinary examination of the digestive tract helps determine the health of the animal.

Can a fish suffer from constipation?

Have you ever wondered if a fish can suffer from constipation and other problems related to overfeeding?

The appearance of stringy feces clinging to the fish’s body could be an indication that the fish is suffering from constipation.

There are a number of ways you can help a congested fish, especially if it’s not pooping but has a bloated tummy. You should follow the instructions when feeding pellets to the fish. Try to avoid flake food, which can increase the fish’s susceptibility to constipation.

Prolonged overfeeding will eventually expand the fish’s digestive tract, which can put pressure on the swim bladder. This will eventually cause problems with swimming.

Dealing with irregular pooping and peeing in fish

Maintaining a regular defecating and peeing time in a fish starts with maintaining an optimal metabolism. You can help the fish maintain a healthy metabolism by increasing the favorable feeding conditions in the tank.

It is important that you keep the water temperature between 26 and 25°C as colder temperatures are known to slow down the metabolism of fish.

It’s important to help your fish fast for a full day each week. This has a number of health benefits, particularly in terms of improving digestion. It can also help treat constipation in overfed fish.

Improve aquarium flaring by placing a mirror near the tank. Some species of fish have been known to poop when flaring is encouraged. You might want to add a second compatible fish to the tank instead of placing a mirror near the tank; In this case, you may need to increase the tank size.

If fasting doesn’t help a congested fish, you can replace the flakes with a pea diet. You should put the pea in some hot water for about 2 minutes and then put the pea in cold water until it gets cool.

You should feed the fish half a thawed frozen pea daily when the fish is not pooping. It is believed that feeding peas helps the fish poop within 24 hours.

Increasing the dietary fiber content is one of the best possible ways to improve defecation behavior. Increasing the moisture content in the fish feed is also important. Some brands don’t contain enough fiber and moisture.

You must check flake and freeze-dried fish food for the correct fiber content before purchasing it for your fish. You may want to feed your fish peas every 7-10 days to improve their digestive health.

Tips for removing fish waste from the tank

It is important to remove fish droppings from an aquarium to avoid such materials harming the fish. Fish feces contain colonies of bacteria, parasites and fungi that mix with new food and can be ingested by the fish.

The fish then automatically becomes a living host for such parasites, causing serious health problems that can lead to the death of the fish.

Fish droppings usually settle to the bottom of the tank until removed. Fish droppings can also settle on the surface of aquarium plants. You should consider adding a filter to reduce the volume of waste in the tank, but don’t use too many filters as you want to avoid killing fry.

First of all, you need to turn off all electrical components in the aquarium, especially the filter and heater. You should also turn off the air pump.

Use the algae scraper (link to Amazon) to clean the side of the aquarium. Some of the fish excrement can get caught on the algae.

Your next step is to remove between 40% and 50% of the water in the tank using a gravel vacuum (link to Amazon) that draws the water into a bucket.

You can also use the vacuum cleaner to suck as much dirt out of the aquarium as possible. The debris includes fish droppings and fish food residue.

You may want to clean the decorations and appliances, especially those that have built up with fish droppings or food scraps.

You can’t get rid of all of the poo at once, but subsequent changes to the tank water will eventually help remove fecal debris. Remember that you need to replace 15% of the aquarium water daily, but weekly cleaning and fish droppings removal will require you to replace up to 50% of the aquarium water.

You also need to remember that the spare tap water needs to be prepared before adding it to the tank. Tap water contains chlorine and chloramine, which can harm fish. You can prepare your water either by boiling it for about 2 hours or by letting it sit overnight (for about 24 hours).

Make sure to add the fresh water slowly while the fish has been separated into a fish bag. When the water exchange is complete, simply pour some of the new water into the fish bag and let the fish sit in it for about 20 minutes before pouring the water in the bag into the aquarium next to the fish.

You can turn everything back on when the water change is complete. Remember that removing fish droppings from the aquarium should be a weekly process. Don’t neglect to clean the outside part of the tank after cleaning the inside.

Wipe the outside with a clean damp cloth and avoid water stains. Tank owners often ignore the need to clean the outside of the tank, but there is a high chance of introducing germs into the aquarium from the outside. Make sure the outer part of the tank stays dry at all times.