Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding SAD Bluegill

Does Seasonal Affective Disorder affect fish?

Last Summer, I started feeding mealworms to the largest (by far) of 4 BG in my daughter's small aquarium. I worked his way up from 1 to an eventual 8 every day in early Fall. But starting in November, his appetite dropped. Where before he would snap up 7-8 mealworms pretty fast, I now have him cut back to 6 mealworms 5 or 6 days a week (which he takes 2 or 3 hours to finish off). Since the aquarium is inside, the temp should be roughly the same (maybe a couple of degrees cooler now).

Could he be eating less due to the fact that the days are shorter? The aquarium does have a light, but it is not regularly turned on.

For the record, here is a current picture of DK the Bluegill:

Theo :

Describe the light situation -- outside light from a window , overhead lights and aquarium light. BG are effected by photoperiod but I don't know about depression in fish via SAD. If someone knows if fish have serotonin in their brain chemistry it would be interesting.

Unless it's the pic looks like DK is missing some scales and may have some minor infections. If so that could effect his appetite.

DK is a male, so he gets depressed frequently without telling anybody.

He probably wants a new aquarium with a hemi.

Lighting:

SE corner bedroom with windows on the East and South walls. They have light colored drapes which are usually closed. I would guess that he gets a couple of hours of artificial light in the evenings after dark, averaging out the amount of time I have to put up with "Big & Rich" coming out of the room.

Condition:

Pretty sharp CB, he does have 1-2 scales messed up right behind the opercule. No apparent infections; those pink spots are chuncks of stuff he stirred up off the bottom. Yes, the aquarium could use a good cleaning; I limit my hygene activities to changing about 20 fl.oz. of water a day. (If my daughter wants to become an aquaculturist, she has to kill those first million fish, right?)

Sex:

Bruce, you agree with my guess that's he's probably male?

...more than probably.

Theo :

Is the light from the windows enough that it will cast a shadow in the aquaqium ? Has he exhibited any signs of spawning (making a bed) ? Have you noticed changes in his color from when lights are off to on and then on to off?

Eric:

He could only get direct sunlight shining on the aquarium on weekends (drapes are closed in the Winter while the kids are in school) this time of year when the sun angle is low. But the drapes aren't always open on weekends and central Ohio only has sunshine maybe 25% of the time. So he isn't exposed to much in the way of sunlight or shadows.

I have seen no evidence of bedding behavior.

He has very predictable color variation compared to the smaller BG in with him. He is dark when the room is dark; he is much lighter when it's daylight or the lights are on. He can change fairly abruptly (under 5 min) but normally takes a little longer (10-20 min, I think). It's interesting that the smaller BG don't seem to change color much and never all have the same pattern - they always seem to have both dark and light patterns at the same time.

Theo :

Auqariums are fun with BG and RES. The color changes and moods and activies are quite a puzzle. How big are the other BG ? Color changes can be very fast . By turning the light off (room dark) and back on you can watch them change colors. When DK gets angry/aggitated I bet he will turn dark as a warning to the others. The rest will stay light to be less obvious to him. When spawning time arrives you should see some activity -- I do even with 3in. fish. I did an expir. with red once by turning the lights off waiting a couple mins. and then shinning a lazar (red) into the aqu. and on one fish. Much commotion insued with fish darting all around trying to avoid the red light and the rest chasing the one with the light on it. DK may be getting old (constant warm temps no metab. slow down) and be time for him to go free. How old is he ?

Eric:

The other BG are now 2"-3" in length. When they were closer in size, before DK bulked up on mealworms, he frequently got medieval on their anal fins. Once he was much bigger (double their size) I stopped seeing him terrorize them; now #2 terrorizes #3 & #4 and DK is mostly oblivious to the little ones. I think he's so much bigger, they just aren't serious competition anymore and can be ignored as no threat to him or his food supply.

All of them are from seining I did in Sept 2004, so I am very certain they are 2004 YOY. Based on my records and memory, we put about 30 sunfish fingerlings ranging from 3/4" to 1.5" in a 70 gallon watering trough at that time (for mosquito control). In early January 2005, after a 5 day power outage when the trough froze nearly solid every day, we took out 16 survivors that were 1" - 2" and brought them indoors to the aquarium. DK was the biggest and has remained so.

Two of them died real quick and another 10 have dropped off sporadically. I beleive 2 or 3 of them were redears (based on side spot patterns, see below) but these did not thrive at all, grew thinner, and died in a couple of months. This was disappointing because I wanted to watch and see when the opercule differences from the BG developed.

This was originally the second largest, one I (at least wanted to) think was a RES:

Theo,

Sure wish I had an aquarium...

Theo :

What do you think caused the demise of BG nos. 3-10? The times I placed 12+- BG in the aquarium a pecking order was established which resulted in the death of the weakest first, then the next weakest and on until there were only 3-4 left. It usualy took about 2 weeks per fish. I assumed that the fish somehow knew the capacity of the aquarium for space for BG and acted to reach that point. This happened no matter how much they were feed (over feed) or the amount of cover. I never raised a BG to 6 in.. When they got to 4 in. they went into the lake. I think they did not grow to full size in the same time as their pond relatives. They seemed to be about 25 % behind.

You might try turning on the aquarium light in a measured way to get the photoperiod up to about 10 hrs per day and see what effect it has on all of the fish. I always had a light source (from 8 -16 hrs. per day) and varied it with the time of year. When the photoperiod got to about 12 hrs with the water temp. at room temp (low 70s) they would start spawning activity around the next strong lunar period (full or new moon). One of the crazy things was the effect of putting tadpoles in the aqu. All the fish would go into a feeding frenzy until the tadpoles were gone. It did not matter if the fish had just finished feeding or not they were going to eat again. I wish now that I had taken notes of the observations.

Theo Envy - Did you say how big DK was and how big the aquarium was?. I suspect that the appetite of DK may be slowed due to slightly reduced water quality. I read where you were doing daily water exchanges. Are you checking the ammonia levels? I suspect a slight ammonia build up or another chemical or combination might be slowing his appetite a little. I also think DK is a male.

Mortalities #3, #4, & maybe #5 looked to me like RES, based on having "broken" vertical bands on the sides that were more akin to spots than stripes. Regardless of species, all three of them seemd to waste away, getting thinner and thinner (sunken abdomens becoming more prominent) until they died within a couple of weeks of each other. The rest of the deaths occurred much like your experience, one at a time, each "victim" being the smallest or nearly so at the time of his demise. I didn't record dates, but they seemed to be spaced out roughly evenly over several months. We have been down to the remaining 4 BG since Summertime; they seem to be the holding capacity of the tank (at elast for their current combined mass).

A goldfish that was MUCH larger than DK was put in last July; he lasted 2 days and then had to be euthanized due to severe damage inflicted on him (missing both eyes, etc.) by our bully gill.

I am exercising limited control (and a measure of restraint) over this "experiment" as at the present time it is my 10-year old's project, one she asked for for Christmas last year. We were lucky to have live BG left in a watering trough for her to start with, or it would have had to wait until Spring. So I have not been calling most of the shots, just making some suggestions ("don't feed more than they will eat") and have been lucky to be able to learn a lot and push DK as big as I have without ticking off my daughter.

He is now somewhere between 6" and 6.5" based on my BG fishing experience; I don't think it's worth the stress and risk of injury to remove him just for a measurement. My daughter's plan is to release him into the pond in the Spring and I will measure, photo, and maybe weigh him then (or sooner if he meets an unfortunate demise - he's too big to flush). The tank is 5 gallons.

I don't have a way to measure ammonia but would not be surprised if water quality was a limiting factor. I started changing water regularly when the food input went up 3-4 months ago.

Theo :

This should help with the id of your small pictured fish above.

http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/PicturesSummary.cfm?StartRow=1&ID=3378&what=species

Theo - The current fish biomass and accumulation of organics in gravel subsurface of a 5 gal tank are likey producing some water quality issue or issues that are causing the depressed appetite. I doubt very much the SAD theory.

Thanks, Bill. They're definitely over the "1 inch per gallon" rule of thumb. Hopefully we can keep them all healthy enough to be released in 3-4 months. My daughter wants to start it over then with a frog (I keep trying to talk her into putting in a LMB fingerling).

Hey Theo,
Give her the benefit of the doubt with the frog (even if you have to get another small tank). They are fascinating little buggers. In Ryan's tank I have four completely aquatic frogs that won't grow over 2 inches, two completely aquatic crabs (Herman and Oscar), and one Rosy Red minnow (named Lucky) who is the sole fish survivor. The frogs are hilarious to observe when feeding. They are completely ungraceful but quick. The tank is finally in harmony.

Deb

Don't worry, Deb. If she wants a frog it'll be a frog. I will have LMB in my life forever - a father has his daughter in his life only for a limited time.

Not worried at all. I am gonna let you in on a little secret. It works in reverse also. Daughters only have a limited time with their fathers, so make the most of your time. I learned this late in life, although I was always daddy's little girl. It seems like just yesterday that he helped me reel in my first LMB. I was like five or six years old, and he and I were in a "catch the heaviest fish" competition. He let me win that day...
Now I am almost 34, and I don't know where the time has gone. Daddy is 68 and retired. He recently had radiation treatments, and we buried my grandfather (daddy's daddy) last Christmas. That day slapped me in the face. The thought of daddy never being there for me had never taken hold like it did that day.
Long story short (which it never is for me) enjoy every day to its fullest with her Theo. I am sure you already know this, but just a reminder of how fast time flys for "daddy's little girl".

And to all you dads out there... we kids love you regardless of how we act. Enjoy your time with us even if we are MAJOR pains in the butt sometimes.

Sorry if I took this thread in a different direction, but Theo's comment (plus the time of the year) really moved me!

I loved Theo's comments also...but have to warn you guys that grandkids will be in your future one day and with grandkid's the emotions just get stronger and stronger. You may even have to build them a special pond instead of just a frog. Life is wonderful.

Amen, ML.

ML, funny you say that. It is wierd I do not have a kid yet but for a longtime have looked forward to being a grandfather. I guess it stems from spending every summer with grandad in the mtns catching trout and camping. Hope the grandkids enjoy those agressive GG!

Greg,

When you get to that point in life, i.e. grandkids, I'd be honored (although not around ) if you will remember those words and indeed hope you will find them to be one thing (at least) that you agree with me on...grandkids are just a wonderful experience. Teach them the outdoors and enjoy it with them and they will have the same memories you have. It is a touch of immortality.