bad idea?

[danny]

is it a bad idea to place a tank near radio speakers?...there is a quite good space in our house but it's below our 2 speakers.will it be stressfull for the fish when the radio is on?

[Carl]

Alhough I have no scientific proof, my answer is this would be a bad idea since fish are quite accute to vibration.

The lateral line is what detects these radio vibrations; it helps fish to detect movement and vibration in the surrounding water including predators and prey.

See: Aquarium Answers; Lateral Line Disease

Carl

[goldenpuon]

That is a very good question Danny. I have a phone near my 40 gallon goldfish tank but it is not loud like a stereo/speakers. The fish never seem agitated by it. It is a cordless phone but not a cell phone. But if it was louder and created more vibration, my guess is it would startle them more.

I actually have a similar question based on the phone being about a foot away from the tank. Do radio waves (such as from a phone) harm fish in any way?

Thanks.

Renee

[fishfever]

I agree that anything that causes vibration including sound near a fish tank is a bad idea.

goldenpuon, on the radio waves my opinion is no; the EMF (ElectroMagnetic Field) falls off as the square of the distance (inverse square law). So if you consider that the cordless phone is on hook most of the time (not transmitting), the exposure over time is quite low. I'd be more concerned about human exposure since people hold the phone next to the face (and I'm not really terribly concerned about that either so I wouldn't worry about it at all for fish). In addition a cell phone is likely to transmit with much more power than a cordless phone.

When I was at a LFS I seem to recall seeing some kind of expensive device for sale that is supposed to reduce/elminate the electric field from your heater - I thought it was a joke but it was for real...

[goldenpuon]

Thanks for the response fishfever. That was very helpful. I won't worry about it too much then.

[bikeguy33]

my response is a little different. i would say to set up the speakers and play them at your comfortable volume for a week...even louder than normal. the first day or 2 they will be a lil agitated....but my guess is they will get over it. this is actually how we trained my son since birth. we always had a tv or some noise going on....now at 4.5 years old we could have a party and he`ll sleep through it. another point to consider is....some species will be more jumpy than others...but i feel they will grow accustomed to it. i play my music LOUD and the stereo isnt far away. my fish don`t even notice anymore

[Carl]

Oct 31, 2009 20:21:05 GMT -5 bikeguy33 said:

my response is a little different. i would say to set up the speakers and play them at your comfortable volume for a week...even louder than normal. the first day or 2 they will be a lil agitated....but my guess is they will get over it. this is actually how we trained my son since birth. we always had a tv or some noise going on....now at 4.5 years old we could have a party and he`ll sleep through it. another point to consider is....some species will be more jumpy than others...but i feel they will grow accustomed to it. i play my music LOUD and the stereo isnt far away. my fish don`t even notice anymore

Very interesting way of approaching this, and it makes a lot of sense.

Carl

[fishfever]

It kind of makes sense but it didn't work so well for me as a spouse... my wife has always had the annoying habit of needing the TV set running for her to fall asleep (also to study or do work brought home from the office). I'd be annoyed watching her sound asleep (and sometimes snoring) while I was wide awake and getting more and more awake if I didn't wear earplugs! This could work better with fish however... LOL

[danny]

thanks all for the response..
the space could've fit a 20gallon tank perfectly.

[danny]

Oct 31, 2009 20:21:05 GMT -5 bikeguy33 said:

my response is a little different. i would say to set up the speakers and play them at your comfortable volume for a week...even louder than normal. the first day or 2 they will be a lil agitated....but my guess is they will get over it. this is actually how we trained my son since birth. we always had a tv or some noise going on....now at 4.5 years old we could have a party and he`ll sleep through it. another point to consider is....some species will be more jumpy than others...but i feel they will grow accustomed to it. i play my music LOUD and the stereo isnt far away. my fish don`t even notice anymore

uhm,i can support this somehow. ;D

my display tank is barely 6 or 7 feet away from our stereo.we play it from moderate to loud,and i love watching movies with awesome sound fx. ;D..from what i have observed,all the fish that i have had in that tank(from guppies,angels,bettas,different cichlids to flowerhorns and bichirs),they don't seem to mind it at all.

besides that,when i was a kid,my 1st tank was just below our stereo speakers.it shared shelves with our radio.the fish that we kept back then(i was not into fish yet then) seems unaffected(kois,angels,plecos,goldfish).i had a iridescent shark that lived for 12years!it died just last year in a pond.for more than 10years it was in the tank near the stereo and enjoyed(or suffered) loud music(i was a teenager,rock n roller of course ;D ;D).

[fishfever]

Huanic looks like he might be a bot posting spam sites here with copied gibberish. Admins?

[Carl]

Nov 25, 2009 16:21:50 GMT -5 fishfever said:

Huanic looks like he might be a bot posting spam sites here with copied gibberish. Admins?

Yes, I missed this one.

He spammed several porn links all over the place

Carl

[parker002]

This is certainly not scientific in any way, but in college I had an enclosure under my couch that contained two 24" subwoofers. On the other side of the wall, about 24" away and separated only by drywall, was a bowl with 2 goldfish in it.

The guy that lived next door had to move his fish to the other end of the room because he noticed that when we'd listen to something bass-heavy, like hip hop, his fish would get "sick". They'd swim upside down, lay on their sides in the substrate, and just generally act like they were dying.

So yeah, I definitely wouldn't put them anywhere near something that could generate loud, continuous noise.

[corycatwoman]

im not trying to discredit your experience in anyway parker. but i play drums and the vibrations they give off or sound waves however the technical jargain is for it but the noise i put out with my acoustic drums and the stereo i play off of which is a couple of large stand up sub woofers and 3 all purpose guitar amps. to give it the extra pow i need to hear over my playing. anyway reason im saying all of this is in the same room as all that probably the closest thing to my drumset is where my fishstand used to be when i still had my drums set up. and im not saying that my vibrations are more powerful then your subwoofers. im only stating that the bass that was being played in my room would be atleast as much as what you described along with a jam session or 2 with my buddies that play guitar and bass. but none of my fish ever had anything like what your saying. then again they werent goldfish either in a goldfish bowl... just thaught id share my experience with excessivly loud noise for a human let alone any animal and my fish.

[parker002]

Nov 25, 2009 23:23:51 GMT -5 corycatwoman said:

im not trying to discredit your experience in anyway parker. but i play drums and the vibrations they give off or sound waves however the technical jargain is for it but the noise i put out with my acoustic drums and the stereo i play off of which is a couple of large stand up sub woofers and 3 all purpose guitar amps. to give it the extra pow i need to hear over my playing. anyway reason im saying all of this is in the same room as all that probably the closest thing to my drumset is where my fishstand used to be when i still had my drums set up. and im not saying that my vibrations are more powerful then your subwoofers. im only stating that the bass that was being played in my room would be atleast as much as what you described along with a jam session or 2 with my buddies that play guitar and bass. but none of my fish ever had anything like what your saying. then again they werent goldfish either in a goldfish bowl... just thaught id share my experience with excessivly loud noise for a human let alone any animal and my fish.

Nope, no problem. We're all sharing anecdotes here, there's no real right or wrong answer.

One thing that might be different in my case is that the crossover was wired to reproduce sounds below 60Hz. In many cases, there are low-frequency sounds in certain music that you can FEEL, but you can't HEAR.

I have no idea how fish would react to LFE, but I can only imagine in might mess with their senses if I can feel it but I can't hear it.

[corycatwoman]

very true. i didnt think about the low tones the lowest tones we would get would be the bass guitar on distortion in drop B

but that was rarity and only if we were doing tool covers.

[parker002]

Nov 26, 2009 18:55:09 GMT -5 corycatwoman said:

very true. i didnt think about the low tones the lowest tones we would get would be the bass guitar on distortion in drop B

but that was rarity and only if we were doing tool covers.

Chances are your amplifiers produce some low-frequency noise, lower even than a bottom B. But not alot probably.

That does bring back memories. I saw Tool live for the first time in 1991 or 1992, prior to the release of Undertow - they were scary good even then and nobody really knew who they were.

Hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago now.