Listen to Your Pond Fish's Secret Language!
By: Inzo Valdevieso
Did you know that the fish swimming in your backyard pond can "talk" to you without making a single sound? It's true! By closely watching how they move and act, you can understand if your finned friends are feeling happy and healthy or if something might be bothering them. It's all about their super-secret body language.
When fish are content, you'll see certain behaviors that are like them giving you a big fishy grin. Things like calmly cruising around the upper parts of the pond looking for food, waggling their front fins to inspect the water surface, gobbling up every last bite at meal time, merrily swimming all around together as one big group, flexing their bodies to peek around, and rooting through the gravel at the bottom. As long as you see those happy signs, your fish are sitting pretty!
But sometimes fish start acting a bit odd or unusual. That's their way of saying "Hey, something's not quite right over here!" You'll want to pay close attention to behaviors like:
- Not wanting to eat
- Holding their fins tightly against their bodies
- Just laying on the bottom, barely moving
- Actually flopping over onto their sides on the bottom
- Swimming really stiffly with their fins clamped
- Gasping or "piping" at the surface trying to breathe
- Barely swimming around or just floating there
- Scratching or "flashing" against objects over and over
If you notice any of those behaviors, it's time to do a little detective work to figure out what's bugging your buddies. It could be something in the water quality making them uncomfortable or sick. Maybe there's not enough oxygen for them to breathe properly. Or they might have an annoying parasite bug bugging them that needs to be treated.
By diligently watching your fish's body language each day, you can keep a close eye on their well-being. The second you sense any bad signs through their movements and positioning, you'll know it's time to check the water and possibly call in an expert to make sure your friends get back to normal fast.
Isn't it cool that fish have their own secret way of communicating with us just through how they swim and act? Now you can consider yourself an expert at interpreting "finese" - the underwater language of our cold-blooded companions!