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I have a group of tiger barbs in my 15L tank (along with some Arulius barbs and 1 checkered barb). In the past week, I've noticed one, and now the entire lot of tigers hovering behind my filter with their tails pointed towards the surface and their little noses pointed towards the gravel bed. They'll just sit there like that, motionless for the most part, until someone walks by and disturbs their concentration.

It didn't really bother me until this morning, when I found 1 of my arch rocks (heavy plastic decorative "rock" with a tunnel through the middle so the fish can swim through) upside down! I highly doubt these little fish decided to suddenly try to move it, but I'm sure they were the culprits, esp. if they all got inside it at once and then got spooked when they lifted it up.

So my question is...well...what are they doing? Was that natural hiding behavior, or are they trying to breed? They're normally very showy and come zipping out when I stop by and pay attention to them, but only the other fish bother to come up and beg for food now. I do need to do a big water change and clean their gravel...but would that affect them so much as to act like this?

Thanks for your imput!

"standing" with their noses pointed downwards, preferably in a shady place in the tank, is a resting position for tigers (and many other barbs).
Fish don't sleep (simply because they cannot close their eyes) but have specific resting positions.

In your specific situation, it might be that the tank needs a good water change; it won't hurt the tigers.

Hm...I did go ahead and do a major water change and a gravel cleaning on them yesterday, and they're back to their normal selves.

I didn't know fish had SPECIFIC resting positions. I know when they are asleep due to their coloration goes pale and they let themselves drift, but I had noticed that mainly with my other barbs. Hm...and the place behind the filter is shady...Although, when I saw them doing this, their coloration wasn't paled out like it normally is. I suppose they musta been sleeping on me. ^^;

I guess I just want to know how that rock got overturned--none of my fish are big enough to and the little fiddler crab in this tank refuses to come out and play anyways. But even then, she couldn't have done that, could she?