Not necessarily dumb, but I had a harlequin rasbora that loved to lay down on anubias leaves. Like, fully horizontal. I can’t tell you how many times I thought it was dead and went to remove it, only for it to swim off when I got close with the net.
It wasn’t sick. It didn’t have any swim bladder issues. The little jerk just spent years pranking me for seemingly no reason.
Still one of my favorite fish.
Little thing just needed a nap.
I’ve seen you g hippo tangs do that under rocks.
Decided to swim through a hole in a sunken ship decoration that was too small ending up causing lethal wounds along his body that took days to kill him.
I miss my bala shark.
Yeah, this is quite common and it’s heavily emphasized that you don’t put this kind of stuff in a tank with fish who are too big for it. Same with rock crevices that might be too small for them.
We used to buy bulk baitfish to give to my dad’s Parana. Most of them they’d eat, but every so often we’d get one or two bluegill that just decided they were parana. They’d all move in a pack together, the bluegill would help the Parana hunt, it was crazy.
The wildest thing was eventually the mixed school would eventually start to turn on the smallest as the food fish dwindled. Straight canibalism on the part of the bluegill. Sometimes the bluegill would be too big for the school to finish, so they’d eat the back half and the front would still be swimming with the gang like it wasn’t just yesterday’s dinner.
We had a male betta that played dead. Dozens of times we thought he was done, only to tap the glass and see him scurry away.
He liked to float upside down. He liked to wedge himself between the filter intake and the tank so he didn’t have to swim to get water flowing over his gills. He’d just sit on the bottom on the gravel for hours.
Strange guy. When he finally died, we didn’t believe it until he started rotting. Figured he was just committed to the bit when he stopped eating.
My dojo loaches do this all the time. They’re known for it. I have to check their gills or give them a little pet (yes you can pet them).
Edit to add: we also have upside down catfish that just swim upside down all day. Oh, and a synodontis which is a bigger bug eyed fish that chills upside down on the surface plant roots.
I used to have these two cichlids in a community tank we dubbed dumb and dumber. Dumber did all the bad stuff, and dumb usually followed. Jumping out of the tank, getting suctioned to the filter intake, hitting the glass lid hard enough to knock one of them unconscious…the list is long
FINALLY, one of them managed to go full zoomies, knock an aquatic potted plant over (about a 2qt flower pot) such that it flipped upside down empty of all plants and dirt.
I discovered dumb trapped inside the upside down now empty pot, and dumber dead having been pinned at the gills by the pot. I’ve seen fish wiggle out of worse situations, that fish was just REALLY dumb. Cichlids are smart fish!
I watched my goldfish choke on a rock
Went after a worm on a hook, easily the biggest mistake of many fishes lives.
Relatable
Swimming in water. Fish piss in it.
Shadup
