The aquarium experiment

**Chris Shelton** · 07-02-07

Create some structure and house some fish........notice where the fish congregate. Take a pinch of food and sprinkle some in the one corner of the tank......take note of where the fish go. Next day, sprinkle some food in the opposite corner of the tank and notice where the fish go. Once fed, where do they return to?..........Now think about it on the larger scale!

**deewy** · 07-02-07

Good point

**Chris Shelton** · 07-02-07

and the point is?

**deewy** · 07-02-07

Fish will return to were they feel safe,be it structure,deep water ect,they wil go to a feeding ground and do what needs to be done and get back to their safehold.
I kept a small bass in a fishtank for a while and observed its behavior,they would dart out grab their food and duck back to shelter.
Leeries on the otherhand as with any predatory fish are hunters and will patroll areas that might hold bait fish,but it will only be for a certain time then they bugger off.
Look at GT's they swim with the sharks cause they know that they are save there,as with dorado,they hang around floating objects and catch unaware prey that comes looking for shelter.
Tuna keep to shoals,thats their strength,they confuse attackers by the sheer number off fish.
Marlins go deep again....
Does not matter what the sise off the fish and what fish,they all feel treatend at all times,in the world below the surface we see it is a eat or be eaten afair

**Chris Shelton** · 07-02-07

well done! Fact is, fish need to eat and although this takes them out of their comfort zones at times, it is something they just have to do to survive. I would not exactly call a metre from the bank a comfort zone for leeries for example, so why do they come in so close sometimes? The answer is food! So what happens if you chase the food away?

Point made!

**fish** · 07-02-07

Even if the fish don't eat the food at a certain time they will stay as close to the food as possible. When it's feeding time they don't need to move far, find the food and the fish will be close by.

**markhup** · 08-02-07

I suupose the higher up the food chain the predators are, the less there is to worry about though. So for instance, a leery will patrol a large area knowing there is food there and not feeling too threatened, and not necessarily hang out in a hold, as do the tank fish.

**gkieser** · 08-02-07

My fishtank has a very strong circular current and there is a large rock in the middle. The fish will hold looking "Upstream" whichever side of the rock that they are on.

The circular current carries the food around the tank and the fish will sit into the current and pick the food off as it comes around. Very interesting to watch, just like our trout in the streams.