Nice one and a half flip

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Well, last night, after I had signed off the 'puter, I went to give my kids a last feeding before hitting the hay. I forked in some CBW's and watched them all diggin' in. One of my discus was busy eating and cruising around the bottom, looking for worms with the other discus. I then witnessed him shoot straight up to the top and propel out of the water, barely hitting the lid.......mind you, I keep the tank about 66% FULL :o I couldn't believe what I had just seen and was waiting for the fish to freak out and croak. Well, after landing back in the water, the fish was completely calm, totally colored up and stress-free, still chowing down on worms. I even put my hand in the tank to check on him and he didn't even flinch when I got near him. He is looking great today and still fine. I'm wondering if this is natural behavior(defense mechanism) that we just don't know about. I know several people who have lost fish due to them leaping to their deaths(so the owners thought), but could it be a natural behavior? I'm thinking another fish startled him by a nip at the tail region as it searched for food near him and the natural reaction was flight. I've never actually seen a fish do this from start to finish and it got me wondering what could have triggered it. He is not damaged at all. ???

Steve

emmmmmm maybe some Dolphin gen in our Discus ???

J/K

I also guess it is some kind of natural defense behavior.
Just wounder why it is upwards insteed of straight away.

Ronald

[daninthesand]

I find that in my tank with 40 or so juvie discus when one gets startled they all go bezerk for a sec and I think what happens is they all instinctivly just go forward real fast, whatever that direction might be at the time, triggered by seeing the other fish freak out. If they are facing up, they shoot up out of the water. If they are down, they hit the bottom etc. It happens a lot when I feed them. Or maybe it happens more often then that, but I'm only around when its feeding time. ...who knows?

But I've seen this in nature when fishing. If I see a shower of minnows burst out of the water, I throw my lure to that spot. Odds are there's a nice predatory lunker down there waiting for the last minnow around to gulp down..hopefully it's my lure!

[Steve_Warner]

Hi all,
Good thoughts guys! Hey Dan, I know what you mean. Here in Vegas, we have Lake Mead(soon to be a pond if we don't get rain) and it has some BIG stripers in it. When you see the shad boil, throw your lure in there and you should hook one up. The problem is that sometimes you can't motor over to the boil quick enough.

Steve