Do fish understand loneliness?
Loneliness is a bit complex for a fish, but it does apply in a way. Some fish are community fish, which means they school and feel most comfortable/relaxed in groups of their own kind. Schooling fish will usually only school with their own species, even if you have two kinds of tetra in your tank they usually won’t school with each other, they are weird like that. Fish who are meant to live in groups will often become stressed when they are alone and will hide and panic, living a life that stressed opens them up for a lot of disease. In general most fish are happy in groups, it is more natural for them. Tetras, guppies, and even goldfish like friends. So they don’t exactly experience loneliness, but they do better with companions. However, some fish need to be housed alone, like bettas. Male bettas will fight each other for territory, and a male with a female will fight after mating, so it is best to keep male bettas on their own. Female bettas can be housed in groups, but they need to
