Hmmm Do Fish Sense Food....

[Harlequins]

Now i know this sounds strange(and bear with me ),my fish know when its feeding time has when the lights first go on,they come out from wherever they are waiting to be fed

When i randomly feed sinking algae wafers to the corys at night with the tank lights off(lid is normally left up this time of the year because of the temperature in the room),like i say not everynight nor at the same time...i stand in front of the tank watching them whilst breaking up the wafers,i then drop 1 bit into the tank and watch where it goes,and i found once that one little bit hits the sand,they all swim out at the same time to investigate,i then continue to drop a few more bits in.

So what puzzles me is how do they know its there?? so do they sense it,smell it?? i dont make any movement and they dont react has though they're just about to get something like they normally would....

Or is it the fact the corys eyesight is spot on in the dark.

What do you reckon??

 

[StandbySetting]

Yes they can, fish have Nares (equivalent of nostrils), but they aren't connected to the back of the throat like they are in mammals, instead they lead to a set of sensory pads covered cilia. When fish are immobile they can pump water through their nares in order to smell. If you want to do any further reading then read a few papers on fish olfaction.

The way in which the olfactory system works varies between species, but most are pretty similar.

 

[Harlequins]

Thanks for that standby just been having a read - i never realised this on fish,so now i know why my fishes pounce on it so quickly

 

[Tizer]

Tis why when i go fishing i might mix flavourings to the bait i use, strawberry and vanilla are always popular when carp and bream fishing

 

[alex1319]

My birchirs are blind and there able to catch minnows and goldfish

 

[clintsc27]

Well there are a few sides to this.....the first is the fish may have learned to recognize your movements and the colors on the food bottle when you feed them (yes fish are smart enough to distinguish between colors and shapes this has been proven). Second, most fish have a pretty good sense of smell and when it comes to certain fish like sharks or catfish they can pretty much smell the food as soon as it hits the water. Third, if you feed about the same time everyday and do certain things like turn on or off the lights then they are probably programmed to recognize that by now and so those stimuli will make them think its feeding time (it's conditional learning, you know like pavalovs dogs, a little psychology reference for ya).
In fact they did a study with goldfish to bust the myth that they have a 3 second memory, and they did so by having the fish do a certain task and then they would feed it when it did this task. So after a while the fish learned that if he did a certain thing he would get food. So they stepped it up by allowing the fish to do this task but instead of feeding it everytime, they would only feed it at a certain time during the day. After a while, the fish learned to only do that certain task during that specific time of day to get the food. The fish would continue to do this for several months afterward with no additional stimuli, proving that they have memories way longer than 3 seconds.

 

[Harlequins]

In theory it can only be smell in this case,has the wafers are kept in the other room and i take them out in there,this is not necessary at a set time or day,just random,so they see no packet and the only time they move is when the first small bit of wafer hits the sand...

Its totally different to the feeding frenzy i have normally where they can see me put it in...