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Well I have had no problems what so ever and I m not moving an entire tank because of this so its staying where it is . Im not letting fish take over my life, and I have had no problems.

BTW, Fry, did you say FRTing?!??!?!?!

I am glad you asked that. My 65g hex is in a room with "surround sound" and my 72g bowfront is with the stereo. Granted the 75g is only exposed to high decibels when hubby is doing housework with Pavarotti (sp?), but the 65g regularly gets the movie backlash.

I watch them closely when I first put on a movie. Usually if they make sudden movements I know it is too loud/deep for them. Then I turn it down.

I will say this, the 72g bowfront inhabitants seem to enjoy Handel's Messiah at Christmastime

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My point is: how much are you willing to do to keep your fish safe? Moving the tank to a better environment is not allowing them to "take over your life", its part of everyday pet care.

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

Ok my fish arent stressed out and they are doing fine, and no fish have died from this so I am not worried. If i put my tank anywhere in the house there is still going to be noise. My brother always likes to listen to music loud and I keep telling him the effects.... But the TV is kept at a minimal volume all the time and the subwoofer turned down. Its only when we watch movies.

"Im not letting fish take over my life,"

Moving a tank to a spot where the fish wont have to endure their water and decor vibrating and loud sounds isnt letting fish take over your life; its being a responsible pet owner. If your going to buy fish and not keep them from getting stressed out(which can make them sick and die), why even keep them?

I'll do graffiti,
If you sing to me in French.

netter, you don't understand what you're doing to yourself.
i don't think there's a sadder deaf than a musician. just think that in a decade or so you won't be able to enjoy music anymore, because certain pitches will vanish for you. it's like hearing kareoke all the time.

keith, hearing degredation is much easier with monotomous loud sounds than with short bursts. i had my experience with unprotected gunfire sounds. it did keep a mark on my hearing, but almost undetectable. it really depends on the exposure time.

when it comes to fish and subwoofers, afaik, fish have very good hearing. they detect very small vibrations, and some even communicate by FRTing (i linked to that work once). on the other hand, besides the vibration from the floor, i don't expect too much to traverse into the water, because the difference of density between water and air. just like light bounces of water and glass, so does sound. they won't hear the sound, but feel the vibrations from the floor.

so having some kind of insulation from the floor might help a lot. also, the floor does not react high frequencies (usually), so the bases are the major headache.
distance won't help too much. pressure waves move pretty efficiently through dense materials. it will help, but less than expected by hearing.

just to make clear: the surround system vs. one speaker is of no significance. the overall noise level (pressure, dB), is what's dangerous and harmful.
it is harmful for us, and it doesn't seem too far fetched to claim it annoys other "hearing" creatures.

Last edited by Fry at 17-Jul-2005 17:14

And yet they tell me to be carefull when watching tv when its kept at a normal level... even during the movies its not that loud. I also play guitar at a normal level or louder when jamming with a friend and my hearing is fine

Last edited by ericm at 15-Jul-2005 09:53

I play drums (without ear plugs) and one of my tanks is right beside my set. I've been playing like this for a while and my Convict is not in ill health or anythign of the sort. I watch him when I paly my drums and he swims around normally...
I will need hearing aids when I'm older because when I paly drums I usually have my iPod cranked full blast in ym ears so I can paly along...

I am sure you watch tv too... and its kept at a normal level.... I've been watching tv for years and my ears are fine...

ericm

If you read my reply very carefully I was refering to your hearing as well and it is the long term effects. It will not show up for some time unless it was a massive noise (like an explosion) that went off at extremly close to you.

Please believe me I do know what I am talking about, my noise problem started 1954 as an apprentice Cabinet Maker (Ear muffs were not used then) the noise ended about 1989 when I was forced to retire from teaching my trade, because of a very bad hearing loss and extreme tinnitus(ringing in the ears).

Keith

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I havent had any problems for months now. All my fish are perfectly healthy.

Just don't go out buying anything too sensitive like blue rams... Lost several of those to either the surround sound system or the amount of traffic near the tank.

I just thought of this but we have surround sound hooked up in the same room my tank is in. We usually dont have it loud but when watching movies or when turning it louder the floor will shake a bit because of the subwoofer... does this cause any harm to the tank? It do esnt shake that much tho kuz the tank is all the way at the back of the room....

It also doesnt take a lot of time exposed to sound for fish to become seriously stressed. If we give an average movie a runtime of 90minutes even if it's not 90minutes of explosions that's 90 minutes that the sound is on and bugging them. If you've ever been awake for 3 days straight then had a neighborhood dog barking on and off every 5 minutes you know how stressful it can be .
When I lost my betta due to sound stress the audio was playing for less than half an hour. I've seen fish get extreamly stressed over a 30 blast from the office alarm system.
It doesnt take much, but if it's a risk you're willing to take then it's up to you....

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You don't have to be blaring it to do hearing damage. Just the normal vibrations of a surround sound system will carry even at a lower level. If you have the surround sound on to the point you can barely hear it upstairs then go downstairs where my grandpa lives the whole wall is shaking. My hearing has even been damaged just by turning my truck radio to the point I can hear it. My truck is not as insulated as most cars or my mom's suv and turning the music to the point I can hear it over the wind while driving 70-75mph down the interstate has lessened the hearing in my right ear. My boyfriend played games with the tv just slightly louder because the games were louder than the tv channels and he got tired of turning it down or up everytime. A few months later he had to turn the tv up to watch anything. Now the level he turns it at to hear gives me a headache. A thunderstorm is completely different. It comes and goes and that's it. It's not on several hours a day at a constant volume. When my tanks were in the room with the tv I turned the volume to the point I could just barely hear quiet talking and if I moved around I couldn't hear normal voices. Now my tanks sit in a room with the guinea pigs away from any tvs and we don't have a radio. Even people who keep the tv as quiet as I do have lost small animals like gerbils because they kept the cage on the entertainment center near the tv. I was told by someone that tvs emit sounds out of our hearing range which does more harm to the animals than it does to us. I kept mysteriously losing fish out of this tank at my mom's house. I'm betting it's cause the surround sound system and big screen tv sits in the same room even though the subwoofer is probably 20ft away(it's a big room) and people only watch movies every few weeks. Fish deaths tended to match movie watching schedule or days when my stepdad would watch alot of tv(without surround sound on). He's gotta be deaf cause he turns the tv to the point you can't really talk in the room and then if you do try to talk he says he can't hear the tv.

Ahhh i just had a good post but it deleted on me...
But if I can remember it......... I was saying that all of you probably think that surround sound is loud all of the time, but the fact is it can be kept low and you can bypass it all... And not a whole lot of tv programs are broadcasted in 5.1 anyways, and even when they are it can be kept at a reasonable level... its not like its loud and booming every time the tv is on... and as for these lectures on keeping things loud.. its common sense that youre going to do some damage if you have the music blaring and whatever else. I am sure most of you have a tv or radio or something near your tank... and I can't see how that does any harm at reasonable levels... And besides theres plenty of vibrations that are created from other things... Like when someone walks by the floor shakes a bit.. or for example thunderstorms.... Last month we had a thunderstorm and there was a big burst of thunder that shook the whole house and set of the house alarm.. that probably shook the tank, my fish are fine. Surround sound if often thought of the movies and how its loud. And most of the vibratiosn anyway come from the subwoofer and I can asure you that any time we have a movie on my parents complain anyways that the subwoofer is too loud so I turn it down.

Since fish don't say anything or show any outwardly signs of stress till it's too late, how do you know they don't mind? Sound is vibration moving thru the air. The vibrations carry thru water a lot farther than they do thru air/ its very easy to hear a laker a few miles out in lake superior when sitting out on the shore, because the vibration is transmitted thre water and into the rocks, etc. You may think of the pane of glass on the wall of your tanks as catching those errant vibrations and transmitting them thru the water.
I have studied noise and hearing conservation in several graduate level courses and given many classes on it. people say the same thing "I don't care I like it loud","I'l worry about it when it happens" etc. noise induced hearing loss is permanent. Once its gone its gone. All a hearing aid can do is amplify what sound you can hear, you will still lose parts of it. I always told my people that the bottom line isn't what the company will pay you for it, the bottom line is you won't be able to hear your kid singing in the Christmas pagent, the deer walkin behind your stand, stuff like that just to get their attention. But I'm not here to preach. do what you want. just remember that the glass wall of yout tank act as your eardrum, it vibtrates with the sound and does transmit the vibration inot the water, where your fish can't get away from it if they feel the need to.

Surly the fish don't like the vibrations of the tank, caused by the high sound.


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is the subwoofer on a bare floor...try to put sumthing underneath it to cushion the vibration...i put styrofoam on mine coz i live in an apt...that lessen the vibration.

and..i have a surround sound in my living and bedroom...both with tanks..they dont seem to mind. although, at 1st, they could get startled.. but after that..they knew.