sick-lid boy

I have a 3.5" Bala Shark in my 55 gallon tank with a couple catfish and cichlids (see sig). He has seemed fairly happy thus far (albiet he doesn't eat much that I can see), and none of the other fish bother him or even seem to take notice of him. He just swims along happily most of the time. Until yesterday, that is. I was watching my tank and stood up for second. Sometimes sudden movement can startle my fish- but I've never seen anything like this before. When I got up, the Bala Shark went absolutely ballistic- darting all over the tank at lightning speed for about 30 seconds until he finally just dropped. After his outburst, he was laying upside on the gravel and appeared dead except for his gills were moving and his mouth was still moving. He remained that way for a minute or so despite my efforts to revive him. Finally, after a little while, I took a net and kinda nudged him a bit- still nothing. After a few moments I scooped him up with the net and turned him right-side-up. He stayed upright, but still wasn't moving for a couple minutes... finally he started swimming again, but backwards. He finally snapped out of it and started to act halfway normal again - swimming around kind of skittishly. Today he seems fine- acting pretty much completely normal again. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? Any insights as to what the **** happened?

Butterfly

Fish are easily startled sometimes. was there a sudden noise when you stood up ar anything out of the ordinary happen? Some of the shark species play dead when scared. That may be what he was doing.
Carol

sick-lid boy

He was definitely startled, although I think he kinda over-reacted . And yeah, he looked like he must have been playin' possum. I thought he a goner for sure for a little while there... looked like a classic case of fish heart-attack.

muzicstar

I'm learning so much from this forum. These balas certainly have more to them than meets the eye. I'm glad to hear the wee fella is okay now. Great story.