Do fish sleep?

[Rubyrose]

A guy at my work has asked me to post this.

Do fish actually sleep?

[chelsea78]

Hi there,
Apparently they do, if you have a tank they say you should turn the light off during the night so the fish rest, how true this is i aint a clue but i got told that from a worker in a fish shop.

[B00]

Yeah, they seem to do.

At night when I switch the tanks lights off, the fish tend to sink close to the bottom and not move.

[warpig3]

I know that larger fish are able to switch off part of their brain so that they sleep while the other part keeps them moving to enable breathing etc.

Am sure someone will post a proper explanation of this later.

[hammerman]

It will all depend on what species the fish is.

Fish do not have eyelids so they don't sleep like mammals do. However, some species do go into a semi trance. They need to remain semi awake to keep an eye out for predetors.

Some fish such as some shark species cannot stop swimming otherwise they cannot maintain enough water flow through their gills so therefore they don't sleep.

Some species of wrasse spin a ******* out of mucus and "sleep" in there whilst other fish bury themselves in the sand or lock themselves into caves and crevices.

HTH

[hammerman]

The above word was c o c c o o n

[Rubyrose]

Thanks everyone... I shall pass on my noew found fish knowledge...

[Rubyrose]

new*

[wolf63]

Why is c o c c o o n a bad word?

[warpig3]

presumably the last 4 letters bring it up as offensive, wolf.