How Can I Tell If My Fish Are Happy?

Answer 1

This is not so much a philosophy question as a biochemistry question.

Luckily for the birthday girl I made the mistake of giving a friend a little fish tank once and it became a learning experience for the two of us that took years to understand.

Here is how it works. For every one inch of fish you have in a fish tank you need one gallon of water, fresh or salt, depending on the fish. You also need bacteria and declorinator, a heater, a bio pump, and a de stressing agent.

The fact is fish urinate in the same water they swim in and the urine is an amonia. The longer the fish stay in the water the more amonia they ingest and the more stressed out they become. They also become stressed out from changes in temperature and changes in light or motion, but the main stresser is the water. So, you wind up having to change the water more and more the more fish you have as compared to the size of your tank. By the time my friend moved away his 10 gallon starter became a 50 gallon tank with seven inch fish. His wife had a cat so bye bye fish. Plus you can't lug fish across the country that easily.

Back to their moods, fish are carniverous in nature. They separate them into three classifications of hostility, the least being community fish, the middle being semi-agressive, and the last being aggressive. A Jack Dempsey for example is fully aggressive and will attack the other fish. A Gorome is semi agreesive on only attacks when it is stressed and a gold fish is a community fish and won't attack anything normally.

So, assuming you clean the tank, keep it warm, keep the chemicals low ph, low clorine, low amonia, with some bacteria and a destressor for the water change your fish should remain happy so long as they have their space and they don't grow too big for your tank.

Philosophically speaking the lesson you are supposed to learn here is that we live in a tank like environment , people, fich , what ever, and the poisons we give off effect the others around us. If we want to maintain happiness then we have to be careful not to crowd one another or take one another for granted and not harm one another.

And in case I forgot to mention it, the answer is the way you know that your fish are happy is they are not eating one another. Unhappy fish fight. They can also develop a disease calle ICK that tells you they are depressed but again that relates to the amonia and they have a chemical to prevent that too.

Happy Birthday.

Answer 2

With fish it more about healthy or sick. Sick fish will be inactive, gasping for oxygen, fins clamped close to the body or not eating. Thats definately "unhappy" A healthy fish will be swimming normally, alert and hungry. You could call them "happy" With a fish like an Oscar you can pretty much use the puppy criteria. It will wag its tail, swim up and down the glass and beg for food when it sees you. If it's sulking behind a rock then it's sick/unhappy. It's also safe to assume that any fish in a bowl is "unhappy". Ian

Answer 3

Actually most household fish only have a 30 second memory. So when they are hungry, they feel like they have been hungry for their entire life. The same when they are happy, sad, or bored.
Its nice of you to be concerned but with fish there is not much to do for them except to keep them clean and fed.

Answer 4

You could never tell if your fish were happy because they can't speak and they certainly can't do any body movements that you could tell what they mean. You can only feed them daily and make sure they have clean water.

Answer 5

Are they complaining? If not, just assume they're happy. Oh yea, did you know that if you tell water crystals that you love them, they'll change color and shape. Obviously you need a microscope to see the change. Maybe let them know you're thinking about them from time-to-time.

Good luck with that.

Here's a freebie:
"Tell the truth, but tell it slant"
-Emily Dickinson

Answer 6

If they're perky, but not running around erratically.

If they make finny jokes.

If they eat all you feed them, within a few minutes, and clean their plates.

If they only do the backstroke to scare their kids.

Answer 7

I think if they are being fed and their water's changed, they're just pretty much content.

Answer 8

Maybe ask them if they are having a good day and see how many bubbles they let flow to the surface?

Answer 9

Ask your Genie in the bottle.
If you don't have one I will
send you one for Xmas.
Let me know.
Mohamed

Answer 10

Is it possible to be happy without consciousness?