My fish gave me a scare this morning. When I came home from work (7 am) the room was dark and I went and turned on the tank lights as always because the first thing I do when coming home is greet my kids...
Karma was lying in her cave and wouldn't come to the top. When I tapped she just turned her butt towards me and ignored me. Phlox and Whisper looked terrible! They looked like they had been up all night partying and were hung over! Whisper was especially shocking as she had turned almost completely WHITE! She is usually a bright red! She swam into the cave and hid when I tapped. Phlox was laying between two pillars of his greek temple (a favorite resting spot of his) and wouldn't respond to my voice or tapping. When he finally did he swam clumsily over and leaned on the divider looking dazed. Lava was sleeping quite heavily and it took me a few minutes to get him up. The girls in the 10 gallon were also dazed looking. I could NOT figure out what was wrong! I started shouting at my brother to get up and come look at the fish. He said Whisper looks like she's been bleached! I asked him if he did anything, sprayed anything around the room last night or what. He said he did not. I had asked him to feed the fish as I didn't have time before I left. He said he washed his hands and had no chemicals on them before touching their food. I couldn't figure out why ALL 4 of my tanks had dopey looking fish in them! I tested the water in all tanks... everything good. I quickly gave them all water changes. Before I even finished the water changes they all perked up and seemed perfectly fine! Whisper emerged from the cave all wiggly and bright red again! Karma was up and wiggling and popping her lips at me like she does when she's hungry. I came to the conclusion that I had just woke them up too quickly and they were all still sleepy. I've seen my two boys like this before. They sleep so heavy they almost go into a coma!
It's takes forever to get them up! I think from now on I'll just turn the room lights on and give them time to get adjusted before turning on their tank lights. They get so cranky and weird when you wake them from a deep sleep. Afterwards I put my hand in Phlox's tank and cupped it. He swam right in, sat in the palm of my hand and gave me lots of gentle little kisses on my fingertips! It was so sweet!
It was like he was saying "Sorry if we scared you Mom, we were just very sleepy"
Does anyone else have Bettas that sleep like that and are hard to wake up?
Similar Aquarium Fish Forum Threads 
it's less startleing (sp)
