How far do your fish swim in a day?

[lelover]

I've been amazed by my nonstop harlequin rasbora. The four of them zoom back and forth in the front of my tank all day long. I started to wonder how far they swim each day.

They cross the 3 foot tank about 10 times every minute.
30 ft X 60 minutes = 1800ft/hr.
1800 X 24 hours = 43200ft/day
43200 / 5280 = 8.18 miles/day

Now I'm sure they've got to rest a little bit, but 8 miles X 365 days is almost 3000 miles per year. This little one inch fish can cross the entire US in a year!

 

[steppy104]

thats insane.....i never thought to try and figure it out!

 

[WheelmanCA19]

Thats a lot of swimming.

10 times a minute is once every 6 seconds though. And while I don't doubt that your fish swam back and forth that many times during that minute, your observation time really isn't long enough to make any conclusion on how far they swim. At the very least they'll stop to sleep won't they?

They probally swim 1-2 miles a day, which to me, is still a lot

 

[heyimeugene]

Thats crazy.... but just think about how far we walk in a day no average and multiply that by a year... I havn't even started to count

 

[lelover]

I don't think my rasbora sleep, unless they sleepswim (like sleep walking). I've never seen them stop moving. Still I'll compromise with you. I'll do some more 1 minute observations at different times of the day. I still think they swim at least 5 miles a day. Another poster told me his irridescent sharks swim across his 4 ft tank 18 times a minute. That makes nearly 8000 miles a year! That's a trip around the world!