Let's Dance

[Seige]

My bday is coming up in about a month and I had a general question. Is their a certain level of sound that will cause fish stress. Should the tank be covered if possible during party's.

[Ninong]

I posted about this in detail on Reef Central a few years back.

Let's put it this way, when they were building the new east span of the Bay Bridge (which they're STILL building) to replace the span that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the noise from driving pilings was strong enough to kill all fish within 50-100 yards!

Fish in an aquarium are affected by noise, which is why you will see signs in virtually every public aquarium telling you to NOT tap on the glass.

This got to be a rather stupid discussion in that RC thread because a dozen or more people posted that their fish were perfectly happy being only a few feet away from their home stereo equipment. To each his own, I guess.

The bottom line is that less noise is better than more noise when it comes to your reef aquarium. You will have to be the judge of that. Noise causes stress. The more noise, the more stress. Noises that are loud enough can injure or even kill both fish and marine mammals. So to say that noise has no effect, which is what some people on RC claimed, is patently absurd.

[Seige]

It's pretty obvious noise has an effect. I was wondering more about the level of noise.

I've always felt that the use of sonar should be banned. If the military wants to train with it they can do so in an enclosed fish free tank or using a computer simulation.

[Ninong]

From a March 2007 thread on RC:

Question from another member:

I'm a dj and I play fairly loud music on an almost daily basis. My question is fairly obvious. Will this be harmful to a tank's inhabitants? I'm not currently running a tank but I'd like to start one in the near future. The tank won't be set up near my speakers but you can hear my music in almost every room.

I've noticed that when people bang on tanks that things like featherdusters and other such creatures tend to close up.

My response:

I think that's an excellent question and this seems like the appropriate forum to discuss it. Thanks for bringing it up!

I'm sure we are all familiar with the damage done to marine mammals by certain intense forms of sonar. And the literature is full of reports of fish dying from the effects of damn building and pile driving operations. Those are extreme examples but they do show that loud noise can have adverse effects on marine life. Heck, loud noise has an adverse effect on me, too. The older you get, the more sensitive you become to loud noise. At least I do.

Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) did some studies in San Francisco Bay in 2001 in preparation for the building of the new replacement span between Yerba Buena island and Oakland. They're spending upwards of $6 billion to replace that part of the bridge between Oakland and San Francisco across San Francisco Bay. You may remember that a section of it fell during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Caltrans conducted pile driving experiments and collected the dead fish that rose to the surface. Some were bleeding and others had suffered swim bladder damage. Then Caltrans expanded their experiments to include fish held in cages at different distances from the pile driving source.

Results indicate that there was mortality caused by exposure to pile driving sounds, with dead fish of several different species found to at least 50 meters from the pile being driven. They also observed an increase in catch by over flying gulls during pile driving, further indicating fish mortality.

Public aquaria around the world are aware of the effects of knocking on the front glass of their displays and all of them take preventive measures, such as public warning signs, to reduce this disturbance. The effects of knocking on the glass seem to be limited to disturbance of the aquatic animals and perhaps an increase in stress levels.

I think those examples -- pile driving and knocking on aquarium glass -- probably represent the extremes of the problem. The question then becomes one of assessing the degrees of harm that might result from anything in between those extremes. I suspect that loud music in close proximity to an aquarium is something that we should avoid.

The last time I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, they were displaying their captured great white shark (the first one, the female) and there were signs all over the place asking that visitors please refrain from using flash photography, yet flashes were going off every ten or fifteen seconds even while the aquarium employee was talking. The aquarium notices warned that the great white shark in particular was sensitive to light flashes. Every time the great white came around to the front of the display, flashes would go off and you could see the shark flinch. Finally the flashes stopped after the aquarium employee repeated the warning at least twice during the presentation.

[Seige]

Thanks Ninong.

It's a lot to consider.

It's more difficult to reduce sound in modern open concept homes.

Obviously at a party we'd want to show off our aquariums but it may be better to cover them with some form of noise reducing material.

One positive thing. I don't expect to be using pile drivers to create a bridge through my living room. The gulls would just be too annoying. ;-)

[Ninong]

I have seen more than one aquarium -- both marine fish and full reef -- built into the wall in media rooms in McMansions that had power-activated blackout shades that would block out the light from the aquarium so as not to disturb the viewing pleasure of the people watching the movie but I doubt that any consideration was given to the noise bothering the fish and other animals in the aquarium.

These were dedicated media rooms with a dozen or more leather lounge chairs arranged stadium style. Why anyone would put an aquarium in their media room is beyond me.

[Seige]

ROFL Guess I'm one of those. That was my long term plan and part of the reason I asked. To have a bar / game room / media room with an aquarium when I get my house. I wouldn't do it without sound protecting the aquarium and testing to make sure the sound that reached the tank was down to a reasonable level.

Sound barriers is definately something I have to research but that's still a couple years away.

[metalhead]

Just an idea...

Buy Auralex pArtScience SpaceCoupler Soundproofing Material | Acoustic Treatments | Musician's Friend

You can probably see where I'm going with this... Build something to set in front of the tank and cover it with this stuff or something similar to deflect the sound away.

I used the studio foam in my studio and it worked fairly well. I've heard that the auralex is incredible at deflecting sound and is currently the best solution currently on the market.