Sheargrub Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 I lost my red wag platy a few days ago, and her tankmates seemed a bit "off", following her death. One of them (the one who had been there with her the longest) seemed especially affected by this; she started being really distant and spent most of the time hiding in the corner of the tank. Meanwhile, my other two platies began to act a bit aggressive towards each other, which isn't like them at all. When I saw them this morning, their odd behavior had stopped, and they're now behaving normally. But all of this made me wonder as to whether or not their behavior was tied to the death of my red wag platy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 While I do believe some fish might, what you saw sounds like the one you lost may have been more dominant and the loss upset the social hierarchy. Once it re-established they returned to normal 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony s Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 On 6/18/2024 at 11:47 AM, Sheargrub said: When I saw them this morning, their odd behavior had stopped, and they're now behaving normally. But all of this made me wonder as to whether or not their behavior was tied to the death of my red wag platy. there have been recent studies on consciousness in animals. Initial results indicate it's possible. To what level who knows. Very much dependent on brain size, I'm Guessing. Note- not talking about intelligence. Animal intelligence is different. A horse is very smart for a horse-like animal. but don't expect it to add and subtract. Most animals can be target trained. I've seen them training spiny tailed lizards before. Snakes are highly intelligent; some prefer family structure. The bigger fish we keep are also very intelligent When we have to sell animals, we have to be very careful. selling too many from a group will make the rest go off feed. So, yes, they actually do notice. usually not for long. And I'm sure you've seen videos of mama elephants mourning the loss of their calves before. also have to remember, 30-40 tears ago it was controversial on whether fish actually feel pain or not 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoofyGarra Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) I agree with @Guppysnail, Platies are very social animals and form complex social heirarchies and behaviors. The death of one fish could completely disrupt this and cause your fish to act differently. Just as a few examples I have noticed that often my Males will have one or two favorite females and ignore the other females, and the Male will make sure he is the platy boss of the tank, but if he is removed the females will get a bit more rowdy with each other and try to assert dominance. Edited June 18 by GoofyGarra 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwoFace99 Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 Personally, I believe so. I used to have a bonded pair of Apistogramma Cacatuoides Super Red, but one day the male (I named him Helios) became sick. He would more so drag his body across the substrate to move around as opposed to swimming normally, his body was turning more white/fading colors, Helios would hide often, and made no effort to eat. After he died, the female (named:Sunset) would hide a lot more, only display very dull/grayish colors, Sunset would only come out when I was present, and hardly ate unless I threw food in her direction. Finally, by the end of next week, Sunset died from the same sickness that afflicted her partner, Helios. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sumplkrum Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 Pecking order is definitely a thing. Also any disruption can cause off behavior. If I'm doing big water changes and cleaning the tanks, it's a lot of disruption/stress and the fish will get twitchy for a few days afterwards. To avoid that, I like to have a batch of brine shrimp ready to feed once I'm done with the cleaning. They forget all skittishness as soon as there's skrimps to eat. Instant memory cancelation. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lefty o Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 im sure to some degree they feel a loss, but to quantify it would be pretty danged tough. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggaz Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) One day, the aquariumist was tending to his tanks when a fish jumped out and started flopping around on the floor, begging for help. The guy quickly scooped up the fish and exclaimed, "Oh poor fish! What is wrong in there, that you jumped out, how can I help you?" To which the fish answered: What's wrong? Where do I begin, man? You know... I wake up everyday and swim to the factory to work for Gregory Illinovich... I work all day for the man, and he doesn't even know my name. He doesn't even know what I do for him. I don't even know what I am doing anymore all day. But he knows I work for him, and that's all that matters, that kind of power over me seems to give him happiness. There is no happiness in my life. My life is a blur... I toss and turn all night, and sometimes I wake up and look at my wife as she sleeps, and I don't even recognize her anymore, I can't even remember the last day I loved her. She's just some old lady I used to know, I don't know where to turn anymore... "Ok," said the man, very concerned... Yeah, and it gets worse. One of my daughters, Anastasia.. she fell last winter, and the cold took her. And my wife's eyes are as dead as I am inside after it. And my son, Nikolai.... I look at him, and I do not love him anymore. I look at him, and I see myself in his worn eyes, and it is repulsive. I see the same tired fish, like looking in a mirror, so helpless and pathetic and weak that I cannot even reach under my rock at night and put my fin on that revolver that is lying there just waiting for me, and just end it all, once and for all. But I can't, because I am so weak.. "Jeeez," said the man. "You poor fish, man you have got problems, fish! You have some serious problems! But why the hell did you jump out to tell me, you need to see a psychiatrist, I am just an aquariumist! All I can do is change your water!" "Yeah," said the fish, "but the lid was off." Edited June 18 by daggaz 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOLANANO Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 On 6/18/2024 at 10:47 AM, Sheargrub said: I lost my red wag platy a few days ago, and her tankmates seemed a bit "off", following her death. One of them (the one who had been there with her the longest) seemed especially affected by this; she started being really distant and spent most of the time hiding in the corner of the tank. Meanwhile, my other two platies began to act a bit aggressive towards each other, which isn't like them at all. When I saw them this morning, their odd behavior had stopped, and they're now behaving normally. But all of this made me wonder as to whether or not their behavior was tied to the death of my red wag platy. Not all fish but I think fish that pair feel grief. I don't have rams anymore but when I did, if one ram in a pair died, the other followed suit not long after. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennie Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 I first realised they do when Lily (my f discus) lost her partner Marshall (my m discus) She was legit trying to wake him up and return him back to life. She was acting so sad. Poking his body to make him swim again helplessly. Trying to get her partner back to life. It was not like a fish picking on dead fish or something. It made me tear up witnessing that scene. That was the day my feelings towards fish being emotional has become stronger. 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doktor zhivago Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 I don't want to say that fish can't feel pain or they have no emotions at all, but the brain of a fish, especially a small fish, just doesn't have the higher structures to create these sorts of complex emotions or introspection required to be actual grief as we humans understand it. There's honestly not a lot going on upstairs in many species. That said they are amazingly instinctual creatures who are acutely attuned to their environment with powerful senses like their lateral line and sense of smell underwater that are far beyond our terrestrial understanding. Many fish can recognize different people and remember long past stimuli so they're not completely stupid either. I suspect there was a disruption in the pecking order that is now resolved as well as the possible fear of a predator once the smell of dead fish entered the tank. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggaz Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 On 6/18/2024 at 7:29 PM, lefty o said: im sure to some degree they feel a loss, but to quantify it would be pretty danged tough. Good news, everybody! I've invented a new device that can measure feelings! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony s Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 There are actually university studies going on currently. University of London has one. The problem is not whether some animals have consciousness or not but how much. and which ones, and to what degree. how self-aware are they. to what level do they have emotions? Not to over anthromorphize things. but there is more there than we have been aware of. pain for fish was controversial 30 years ago. fish memory was controversial 15 years ago. can you imagine how controversial this is? our understanding changes all the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggaz Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 Oh definitely. I'm not making light of that, I hope you understand. I'm pretty sure we're all on the same continuum. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennie Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 On 6/19/2024 at 2:14 AM, doktor zhivago said: I don't want to say that fish can't feel pain or they have no emotions at all, but the brain of a fish, especially a small fish, just doesn't have the higher structures to create these sorts of complex emotions or introspection required to be actual grief as we humans understand it. There's honestly not a lot going on upstairs in many species. That said they are amazingly instinctual creatures who are acutely attuned to their environment with powerful senses like their lateral line and sense of smell underwater that are far beyond our terrestrial understanding. Many fish can recognize different people and remember long past stimuli so they're not completely stupid either. I suspect there was a disruption in the pecking order that is now resolved as well as the possible fear of a predator once the smell of dead fish entered the tank. Highly recommend to check this out https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/science/depressed-fish.html There are even studies that believe simple creatures like brine shrimp may feel anxiety and depression https://csef.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2015/Projects/S2203.pdf In my opinion, the reason why we avoid believing animals like fish to have no feelings or so is people are so used to seeing them as a food source in a normal life. Nobody would like to bound with a food source or try to relate with an emotional creature and then kill/eat it afterwards. This works exactly in the opposite way for the animals that we see as friends. People would barely claim a parrot, dog, cat or a horse have no feeling I think. In a level, we try to think and interpret many scenarios that show extreme stress of dogs as a positive. Like internet is full of dogs look like smiling with teeth showing and we believe they are happy or dogs lift their paws and we imitate them as they want a hand shake. Many of us don’t even clearly know the emotional behaviors of our closest friend animals in the common pet category and treat them wrong many times Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggaz Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 On 6/19/2024 at 8:08 AM, Lennie said: There are even studies that believe simple creatures like brine shrimp may feel anxiety and depression https://csef.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2015/Projects/S2203.pdf [doubt intensifies] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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