Everyone needs sleep

I need sleep as much as anyone else needs sleep. I don't know how I'd go throughout the day without it. The question is, do fish sleep? I asked myself this question when I saw that my fish were floating in the water and weren't moving. Except one of my fish, she was laying on a leaf as if it was her bed. I didn't know whether they were sleeping, being weird and just wanted to stay in place, or if they were dead. They've been doing this for a while now, but only in the morning. After I would turn on their light they would start swimming around the tank. I did some research and most fish rest by reducing their activity, when fish sleep it's different from how land mammals do. They have to "sleep" with their eyes open because they don't have eyelids ("Do Fish Sleep?"). At first I thought it was creepy and weird, but after finding out that it's the way they rest, even if their eyes are open, I thought it was amazing how they have to ability to sleep underwater. When I'm swimming under water I can't open my eyes because it feels like I just got shampoo in it, but fish have the talent to have their eyes open every second of the day.

 A guppy sleeping 

Source: http://guppyfishcare.com/do-guppies-sleep/

After finding out how fish sleep, I wondered for how long they sleep? Do they need the same amount of sleep as humans do? Fish can sleep up to 12 hours, but they only need about 9 or 10 hours in order to get through the day ("How Long Do Fish Sleep?"). Similar to humans, they need a certain amount of hours of sleep to have enough energy to complete that day. How much they sleep depends on how dark the tank is. If there is light shining around their "home" they won't be able to sleep just like when we try to fall asleep and someone turns the light on, I hate it when that happens. I like to think of it as if the light were their sun. When the "sun" is shinning through the tank it becomes the morning and when the "sun" has disappeared, or in this case turned off, it becomes the night. Although they don't have a moon to indicate when it's the night, they still have time to relax as the light is being shut off and is no longer disturbing them.   

Animals and humans are not that different. I find it interesting on how much we actually have in common. I would have never known whether fish sleep or not if it weren't for me to be observing at that time. We might have different lifestyles, but we all live our life the way we were taught to live it. 

Works Cited 

"Do Fish Sleep?" National Ocean Service. N.p. n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2014.

"Do Guppies Sleep? When Do They Sleep and How Can You Tell?" Guppy Fish Care. N.p. n.d.

     Web. 25 Oct. 2014.

"How Long Do Fish Sleep?" My Aquarium Club: Real Knowledge. Real People. N.p. n.d. Web. 25 

     Oct. 2014.