feeders, fat and drop eye

[piscevore]

your aro doesnt have to be able to see backwards to know you are there. Its lateral line is basically a series of fluid filled canals that act as pressure sensors. if you disturb the water in any way the turbulence you create is pushed against these canals and trigger the pressure sensors. The aro can pinpoint what direction the disturbance actually came from. It could be blind and still know you are there. Aswell as this its barbels are sensitive to surface vibrations on the water, for finding food. Because it has two of them it can feel in stereo mode, so that is another way it will know where your hand is.

Im not saying that an aro doesnt look backwards, because it can and does, just that there are other ways that it knows where you are at all times.

here is a good diagram of what im talking about:

 

[DeLgAdO]

 

[Bderick67]

your aro doesnt have to be able to see backwards to know you are there. Its lateral line is basically a series of fluid filled canals that act as pressure sensors. if you disturb the water in any way the turbulence you create is pushed against these canals and trigger the pressure sensors. The aro can pinpoint what direction the disturbance actually came from. It could be blind and still know you are there. Aswell as this its barbels are sensitive to surface vibrations on the water, for finding food. Because it has two of them it can feel in stereo mode, so that is another way it will know where your hand is.

Im not saying that an aro doesnt look backwards, because it can and does, just that there are other ways that it knows where you are at all times.

here is a good diagram of what im talking about:

Very interesting, good info

 

[Steve_89]

My theory is that a fish that is meant to look up for food is now forced to look down because that is where the person that feeds them is located. That is why it goes away when they are stuck in a pond, they then have to look up again. If you think about it there are muscles pulling the eye down and up. If the fish does not use these muscles to pull the eye up because it spends all its time looking down, then they deteriate and do not do the job properly anymore. You put the fish in the pond their muscles are forced to work again and so strengthen and are again able to pull the fishes eyes back up. The same will happen to a person if they never use a particular muscle (eg: people in space lose most of their strength because the muscles dont do work in zero gravity)

Interesting theory.

So would you also say that if you were to black out a tank on all sides the arowana would not develop DE?

Also, I have a silver that only has one eye that has dropped. What would be your explanation for that? I don't think the aro would be using one eye more than the other.

Not trying to slam you either bro

 

[piscevore]

I have to admit these questions are bothering me because I honestly dont have a good answer for them. I believe that a blacked out tank will assist in preventing DE, but then there would be no point in having the fish because you cant see it. I have never experimented with it, arowanas are too expensive in Australia to do something like that, threefore I cannot say YES I believe that blacking out a tank will prevent DE. As for the one eye only having DE, I dont have anything concrete to support this, however it hinders all theories equally. If it was fat deposits then the fat would deposit equally around both eyes anyway. Also it is possible for a fish to us eone eye more than the other, it might focus on something in the room, as it swims in one direction it will look back at this object, when it turns around it now looks forwards. While it seems that the fish takes a seemingly random path in the tank but if you watch it all day you might find it generally swims in an anticlockwise direction or whatever. Its this difference that could be attributed to the fish having DE. It could just be that the right side is stronger (much the same as a right handed person is stronger with their right hand).

Yes I may have a few minor flaws, things that I cant explain fully. I am not a marine biologist but I do think I have some strong points to back my theory. The strongest being the proof that moving them to a pond fixes DE.

PS: something else I forgot to mention about the fatty eye deposit is that if you starve the fish then the DE should fix itself as the fishes body fat is consumed to provide energy to the vital organs, which to my knowledge isnt the case. (dont anybody even think about starving their DE`d aro to find out thats just cruel )

I know you arnt trying to slam me you are trying to pose intelligent questions to make me think even harder about this, which is appreciated.

Oh and by the way everyone Bderick67 is right about the angle/shape of the aros head (unless both of ours are deformed ), but while the eyes are angle slightly downwards the fish is forced to look up often in the wild, but in an aquarium most of the time is spent looking no higher that level with itself depending on the position of the tank.