Do fish Cough

[RobD23]

i was just wondering if fish cough...and if so what does this mean. I just bought my first snakehead (rainbow) and not very often but at times he will make a coughing motion...i believe i've seen my old puffer do this as well...just wondering what it means...He is very action, eats very well and looks beautiful. By far the fish i've been looking for since I have started this hobby. But yes any info you guys can give me would be awesome thanks.

 

[Cyclop3000]

i was just wondering if fish cough...and if so what does this mean. I just bought my first snakehead (rainbow) and not very often but at times he will make a coughing motion...i believe i've seen my old puffer do this as well...just wondering what it means...He is very action, eats very well and looks beautiful. By far the fish i've been looking for since I have started this hobby. But yes any info you guys can give me would be awesome thanks.

Mmmm...mines don't do anything like this, and even though they have lungs, I seriously doubt SH cough. When SH go for a fish (or any other food), they strike and expulse air from their lungs to create a sudden rush of water towards their mouths, which sucks in the fish.

Is this what you mean? That you see bubbles come out of their gills when they eat?

One other thing I just thought about...do you mean that the fish kinda shakes his head from side to side, and backs up a little...once a while for no reason? If so, my JD does this sometimes, and it usually means a) the water parameters are off...and I need a water change, b) he's got parasites and it's bothering him, in which case I use "General Cure" or "Melafix"...

Let us know!

BTW your avatar, is it a pic of the SH you bought in Mtl?

 

[Oddball]

Almost all fish are noted for their talents at "spitting out" undesirable items (e.g. fish hooks), a behavior Wainwright says is more accurately described as "coughing." Snail- and other mollusc-munching species are experts at ejecting showers of shell fragments, for example.

Tetradonts are superb "coughers," says Wainwright, but where some of them really shine is in their abilities to blow water, a specialty which he believes may be unique to the group whose members all have rather small, flute-like mouths eminently suited to the task. Triggerfish, for example, can fire jets of water powerful enough to overturn large sand dollars and even small rocks, he said.

Using an evolutionary history of the tetradont family worked out by others in the 1970s (such a study is called a phylogeny), Wainwright noted that while all the family members "cough," as do most fish, only the more advanced forms can do much else. For example, "blowing" behavior shows up in the triggerfish, a species which appeared sometime after the early triplespines (see chart, page 8). The strange ability to inflate shows up only in the puffers, among the latest tetradont arrivals.

 

[RobD23]

Mmmm...mines don't do anything like this, and even though they have lungs, I seriously doubt SH cough. When SH go for a fish (or any other food), they strike and expulse air from their lungs to create a sudden rush of water towards their mouths, which sucks in the fish.

Is this what you mean? That you see bubbles come out of their gills when they eat?

One other thing I just thought about...do you mean that the fish kinda shakes his head from side to side, and backs up a little...once a while for no reason? If so, my JD does this sometimes, and it usually means a) the water parameters are off...and I need a water change, b) he's got parasites and it's bothering him, in which case I use "General Cure" or "Melafix"...

Let us know!

BTW your avatar, is it a pic of the SH you bought in Mtl?

No but it looks exactly like the one i have thats why i posted it

 

[Waldo]

to caugh one must expell air from their lungs to dislodge blocking material from the throut regions. I say nay. They fart thoguh!

 

[Oddball]

Whale sharks feed on wide variety of planktonic (microscopic) and nektonic (larger free-swimming) prey, such as small crustaceans, schooling fishes, and occasionally on tuna and squids. Also, phytoplankton (microscopic plants) and macroalgae (larger plants) may form a component of the diet. Unlike most plankton feeding vertebrates, the whale shark does not depend on slow forward motion to operate its filtration mechanism. Rather, it relies on a versatile suction filter-feeding method, which enables it to draw water into the mouth at higher velocities than these dynamic filter-feeders, like the basking shark. This enables the whale shark to capture larger more active nektonic prey as well as zooplankton aggregations. Therefore, the whale shark may be more dependent on dense aggregations of prey organisms. The denser filter screens of this shark act as more efficient filters for short suction intakes, in contrast to the flow through systems of basking shark. Whale sharks are always seen feeding passively in a vertical or near vertical position with the head at or near the surface.

The whale shark feeds actively by opening its mouth, distending the jaws and sucking. Than it closes its mouth and the water flow out its gills. During the slight delay between closing the mouth and opening the gill flaps, plankton may be trapped against the dermal denticles lining the gill plates and pharynx. The fine sieve-like apparatus, a unique modification of the gill rakers, forms an obstruction to the passage of anything but fluid, retaining all organisms above 2 to 3mm in diameter. Practically nothing but water goes through this sieve. Individuals have also been observed coughing, a mechanism that is thought to be employed to clear or flush the gill rakers of accumulated food particles. Whale sharks move their heads from side to side, vacuuming in seawater rich in plankton, or aggressively cut swathes through schools of prey. Groups of individuals have been observed feeding at dusk or after dark. The density of plankton probably is sensed by the well-developed nostrils, located on either side of the upper jaw, on the leading edge of the terminal mouth. The frequent turns may keep the whale sharks in the denser parts of the plankton patches, searching and scanning when an olfactory cue weakens on one side or the other. The whale shark's small eyes are located back on the sides of the head. Because of this, vision may play a much smaller role than olfaction in directing the head turns during surface feeding. One live whale shark pup removed from its dead mother was maintained in captivity in Japan. It did not eat for the first 17 days, even though it swam constantly. This suggests that the pup had substantial stores of endogenous (stored) energy.

 

[RobD23]

to caugh one must expell air from their lungs to dislodge blocking material from the throut regions. I say nay. They fart thoguh!

Thats funny cuz all channas can breath air, and they actually have a organ similar to lungs that allows them to do this..this is actually why channas are banned in many places because due to this breathing apparatus they can travel from one body of water to the next... so i'm sticking to the coughing thing.

 

[clare]

Coughing in water implies expelling water for reasons of expulsion of matter,being a foreign body or partly digested food,hence fish can be sick.Our mbu puffer sometimes coughs for a number of days,becoming very subdued and going off his food.We found this once to be nothing more than some mussel stuck in a small split in his teeth and he coughed to try to dislodge it.He also blows sand,a natural hunting instinct to reveal shellfish buried.Strangely,our fahaka also blows,but at the surface of the water,possible identity crisis,thinks hes an archerfish.

 

[guppy]

Ricola,,,,heheh.

 

[RobD23]

Coughing in water implies expelling water for reasons of expulsion of matter,being a foreign body or partly digested food,hence fish can be sick.Our mbu puffer sometimes coughs for a number of days,becoming very subdued and going off his food.We found this once to be nothing more than some mussel stuck in a small split in his teeth and he coughed to try to dislodge it.He also blows sand,a natural hunting instinct to reveal shellfish buried.Strangely,our fahaka also blows,but at the surface of the water,possible identity crisis,thinks hes an archerfish.

i fed my little channa a brine shrimp cube and he began eating it , then coughing back out...he is eating some of it because he's belly gets big... should i be worried...he's only 2.5 inchs