A few questions

[Starlight_Guide]

Since I've had some tank problems lately, some questions have built up in my mind. So here they are...

1. Where do fish get the parasites from?? The only thing that I had done differently was put a feeding block in there from Wal-Mart. The gel type ones that "dont cloud the water". Could it have come from there??

2. I decided to put my one female guppy back in the tank with the rest and just treat the whole tank for parasites. When I put her back in she and the other big female seemed to be fighting. They kept smacking each other with their tails, and pecking at each other, and then all of sudden they started swimming around and around and around in a tight circle with each other. Then they broke up and *knock on wood* they have been fine ever since. But I have noticed that when my bigger female goes near the one I just stuck back in the tank, the one I stuck back in the tank swims away from her. Are there pecking orders with fish?!

3. As I was keeping a close eye on my female guppies, I was looking at the black neons too. The seemed smaller than I had remembered them being. The lights were off. Do they shrink too at night, or was maybe it just an optical illusion? This isnt the first time I've noticed this, and when I asked my boyfriend if they looked smaller he said "You thought that too?" Is it possible for them to shrink??

[slp2772]

Oh ya, They shrink. I had some striped tetras that completely disappeared. Just kidding. I believe what you were seeing was an optical illusion. When the light from your tank reflects off the fish especially the bright colorfull ones they appear bigger than they really are. dark colors absorb light, Lighter colors reflect it. And the glass has some magnifying properties when water is on its surface. Or I could be completely wrong and they really are shrinking. Im sure a fish expert here would know about that.

[Starlight_Guide]

Ok. I know I must sound like an idiot. But I was thinking that maybe, because they came from a bigger tank and were put into a smaller tank, that they shrank somehow. Kind of like the reverse of putting them in a bigger thank, they will get bigger with time.

I dont know... Go ahead and laugh, but I was being completely serious.

[emc7]

Are there pecking orders with fish

Yes, definitively.

Do fish shrink? They do when the jump out of the tank and dry up. But seriously, fish can fold their fins up and "look small" when scared or stick all the spines out and flare out their gills to look more impressive.

[Obsidian]

In this instance I am guessing the shrinkage is a play of light. The question makes sense to me, if you see something shrink in your tank and you know that live things don't usually shrink, why not ask if its you or the fish who is "off"?

[Starlight_Guide]

Thank you. For the replys. They make me feel a little better about asking that question.

[ikermalli]

I think with the female guppies they were trying to establish who is the leader, like I heard some fish do that and the leader eats first and the others eat after the leader.

[Starlight_Guide]

Well, I had never seen that before, not even when I had added the one for the first time. So I was really curious!