Did your fish hide from you, when they first came into your

[Circa]

I don't want this to happen to me, I often see fish trying to hide in rocks at pet stores. Should I avoid purchasing a fish like this? Or should I not worry about that, and just give the fish time to get used to me sitting there and watching the reef?

What have your experiences been?

 

[Anonymous]

Just give them time. It is very normal for a new fish to hide when there is movement near the tank. Over time they recognize you and most come out to beg for food.

 

[dbman]

This is a normal and healthy response for any fish - they will generally hide until they are comfortable with their environment. Try to understand that the fish do not understand that they are in the tank for your viewing pleasure, they have been caught, moved, and released several times in rapid succession and just want to be left alone. Turn your lights out or at least dim them for the first day or so and try not to plaster your face to the glass trying to see your new specimen or have your tank in a high-traffic area where there are lots of people moving around. They'll come out soon enough!

 

[suckair]

My fish hide for a few days or even a week! I thought my hippo tang was a goner as he would hide wedged inbetween rocks all the time. It was just his way of hiding. They slowly came around and are out in front all the time sucking up looking for handouts!

"This was with the 105 reef @ work." I did not remmember much hiding with the reef at home.

Randall

 

[Ocyurus]

My fish always do this for a little while, while in the LFS my yellow tang hardly ever came out from behind a nice big cave but in the few times I saw her she seemed very healthy so I took the chance and put her in my tank she kept the same behavior in my tank but after about 3-4 days she started to stick her head out and now she is always swimming around and if you put your face or camer near the tank she always gets right in front of it (kinda hard to take pics of other things though...) my peppermint and CBS shrimp both did the same just give um time, they's come around.

 

[-JB]

Depends on the fish. Some acclimate great, I had a baby hippo tang that hit the water and immediately swam into all the other fish and never hid at all. Now I have a 6 line wrasse that is going on two weeks and just started hanging out and eating food yesterday. It's normal for fish to hid for a bit, but how long is mostly up to the individual fish.