# Sleep Swimming



## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

Ever heard of it? Seen it maybe?

Personally I had not heard of it till I saw someone's little comic strip about it, then this morning I caught Zip, my female betta in the 5g on my desk, doing strange things. She was swimming along the sandy bottom of her tank, dragging her belly/ventrals, brushing against plants, then suddenly swam up into a clump of plants. At first I thought she was stressing out because my kitten had just been on my desk.

As I continued to watch her I noticed she was surfing the glass really slowly and running face first into plants, corners, thermometer, etc. I know that fish will basically turn off their vision to sleep, so this leads me to believe she was sleep swimming. She kinda putted around - normally she _zips_ around in a quick stop-go manner - dragging her fins on things to follow the shape until she bumps into something again.

She only just woke up now, after about 20mins of sleep swimming that I noticed. I took a bit of video but it's really dark because her light is not on, only my room night. I'll try to upload it later if it turned out half decent.

Has anyone else caught their bettas sleep swimming?


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## Heartbettas (Dec 13, 2014)

Ahh, yes. Mine do it EVERY morning! I always thought that it was them waking up slowly, but maybe it was sleep swimming. Yes, they do it in the dark early in the morning. Just slowly swim around, aimless.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Yep, all my fish do it. It's hilarious to see my Angel sleepswim too, it's real cute ^_^


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## Aqua Aurora (Oct 4, 2013)

Funny that you mention this, I think I saw Xerxes sleep swim last night a bit. He sleeps in the rotala stems, near the surface) I saw his lil' pectorals paddling but he wasn't going anywhere.. I think he was chasing something/one ^^


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## CopperBell (Sep 14, 2014)

Petrichor does this in the mornings before his lights are turned on a lot of the time. It's cute. He'll usually swim slowly along the bottom aimlessly but I have caught him paddling to nowhere on the anubias leaf he sleeps on, slip off and slowly sink to the bottom. Then he sat there a second before darting back up.

My male pearl gourami also does this, usually late at night.


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## Lizz (Mar 16, 2014)

Berlioz will do it and get himself in really weird positions... he once was face first in the center of one of his plants with his but right above him. (he was vertical) he also will beg for food in his sleep. he goes up to the corner where i feed him and haphazardly flare then slowly float down to the bottom and be sound asleep again.  he is such a weirdo lol.


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## maksimg (Feb 27, 2015)

I'm new to this site but boy has it been help full. I am a new owner of a pet fish for the first time in my life. Some background, maks is my name Blú is my betta name. He is delta tailed male. In a 1.5 gallon tetra led with whisper filter without bubble maker. I know it's tiny but he's a tiny fish and I will do frequent water changes until my tank is cycled but more on how to do it right later. Holy crap. Last night Blú was completely blind, I came home late from school turned on my room night, and me being so very paranoid about him I checked on him. I flipped out he was swimming around completely blind trying to bite on food but missing it and letting it float to the bottom. He was hitting walls and decorations.... I started panicking so I changed about 3 liters worth of water out all the while he's blind in my cup. 20 minutes I was trying to feed him with my finger he only swallowed one. Ugh it killed me I was gonna cry for him. He's my first pet since like 10 yrs old when I had a pet turtle... Now I'm 25 in medical school.... After a 20 minutes he started to see again. I went online and couldn't find anything. People never said they get blind all of a sudden I thought it was Popeye or something.... Today I came home at 2 am (med school is fun) and again he's BLIND!!! Found him on a silk leaf dead asleep and then he started "sleep swimming" I left him alone and finally I found this page and felt a sigh of relief... He was running into walls walking on his ventral fins... I didn't bother waking him up. I'll see tomorrow morning but boy I'm so scared he's going blind or he has like a vitamin A deficiency that causes night blindness in humans due to cis retinol etc etc I'm too crazy about it like an over protective parent. I will be posting a lot in the future so I'll see you guys around. I love him, he's so cute!!! You guys are not the only one with a blind betta that sleep swims at night. Thankfully he found a leaf and layed down on it again.


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