FishProfiles.com Message Forums

My H. rasboras go all crazy when the fish tank light is off so for the past couple of months i have kepted the lights off. is that bad. the tank is a 29-gallon with 2 discus fish ( i know they need a bigger tank, i have a 55+ gallon tank coming soon) 5 cories, and 5 H. Rasboras. there was 8 of them.

when i say crazy they literally go crazy, smashing agaisnt the glass. on top of that the dicus try to eat them/ or nibble at them. the fist couple of weeks when i first got them and had the lights off 3 Rasboras were killed by them.

i think that its ok to keep lights on b/c i havent notice disease or deaths so far. im just want to hear what other peoples say on this.

The light is unlikely to be the problem with the aggression - the small tank is the probable cause.

You're likely throwing the lights on suddenly. Try turning the room light on, waiting fifteen minutes, then turning on the tank light. Anything you can do to make it more gradual and sunrise-like will help relieve the stress.

Leaving the lights on 24/7 not only prevents your fish from sleeping, which could presumably kill them after a while (it'll drive a person mad to stay awake for too long), it is more or less guaranteed to cause significant algae blooms.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

"for the past couple of months i have kepted the lights off". i messed up, meant to say that i kepted them on 24/7.

when should i have the light on, during the day or at night. i think maybe the night b/c the tank is like pitch black at night without the light on.

Last edited by haRg0wbOi at 29-Nov-2004 20:33

You need the lights off at night, not during the day. Diffuse daylight from a window is still quite a lot of light, and in nature it would be almost pitch-black at night.

You should try gradually acclimating them to the dark each day, as Mousling suggests. My X-rays get excited every night when I turn off the lights, but they cope better if I turn off the tank light while the room light is still on.

As for the rasboras being killed by the Discus...if you're sure that that's what's happening, then you should move one of the two species to a different tank. If you can't wait for your 55, then return the rasboras until you have room for them in a suitable tank.

alrite thx for the post guys. i was wrong about the discus killing the H. Rasboras, i turned the lights off last night and the this morning when i turned the lights back on all 5 of them were still alive. the 3 fish that died earlier probally died of stress.