Abstract: Fish behavior change can be used as a sensitive indicator to identify sudden environmental pollution. This study conducted a quantitative analysis on a respiratory metabolism, swim behavior and copper content in tissues of silver carp under different copper concentration (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 mg/L). The results indicated that the exercise duration and the respiratory frequency of juvenile silver carp were significantly affected by the copper concentration. As the copper concentration increased, the exercise duration declined significantly. When the copper concentration was 4.00 mg/L, the exercise duration decreased by 72.41% compared with the control group. The increased copper concentration reduced the average speed, average acceleration and total distance in 5-min exercise duration. The minimum average speed, minimum average positive acceleration and the minimum average negative acceleration were 29.50 mm/s, 45.18 mm/s² and 42.64 mm/s², respectively. Positive acceleration was higher than the negative acceleration. The copper content in tissues of juvenile silver carp was: liver>gill>muscle, but without significant difference among tissues. The study provides basic data and theoretical basis of water quality by monitoring fish behaviors changes to give early warning and comprehensive evaluation on the toxicity level.