How Smart Are Fish?

[Chad]

My flier Bob learnt this trick to attract my attention, it started with just swimming nose down backwards, which of course I would go upto the tank thinking he was ill, then he added the flip lol. He was in a tank on his own after a disagreement with the Urau. The tank is my quarantine tank in the kitchen so it gets a lot of traffic and while Bob was recovering he taught himself this......
 
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy_01IBEtHY
 
When I moved him to another tank with angel fish he has not done it since.

Very interesting. I wonder if that behavior exists in the wild.

 

[DevotedToDiscus]

Goldfish are Carp, ask any Carp angler how smart Carp are and you will get your answer. It might only be that the part of their brain which avoids danger is bigger, but they are very smart when it comes to avoiding capture. I have personally watched wild carp do some unbelievable things to get free food from anglers, without getting caught.

  

 

[PrincessKiara]

Epic! I want my fish to swim backwards and flip! LOL!
Can Zebra Danios be trained? If so, how?

 

[FriendlyFriendlyFish]

Thanks for sharing this great article! When I was younger my parents had a pond in the back yard and it was my job to feed the gold fish. Before feeding the fish I would always ring a bell, eventually the fish were very well trained and would instantly come to the surface whenever I rang the bell. I believe that all animals are smart enough to be trained especially if food is involved. 

 

[Chad]

I agree, food is a strong motivator, even for humans.
It might be fun to try the bell on my fish just to see if other kinds of fish respond.

 

[snazy]

I remember I was watching a video of one of Takashi Amano's tanks in his home and they commented that the angels are trained  to come for food to one side of the tank by knocking on the tank glass prior to that.  They demonstrated it but I've no idea where to find the video.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Have you tried looking on the internet? 
 
 
 
Seriously, if you can find the vid, I'd be interested to see it.  Sounds really awesome.

 

[snazy]

Have you tried looking on the internet? 

 
 
 
Seriously, if you can find the vid, I'd be interested to see it.  Sounds really awesome.

 
There are so many videos of his tanks I don't know where to start. I saw it about a year or so ago.  All I remember is it was his "big home aquarium", not his customers'
 
I'll try to find it now.

Edit: Wow, that was quick. I googled "Takashi amano home aquarium angels" and found the video immediately

 What I saw before was some sort of media compilation about the setup of the tank but the video below is exactly what they showed as part of the demonstration where Amano himself knocks on the tank to call the angels. My fish would have jumped out the tank if I did that
 
Here it is:
[media]http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrjxg_8wmdg[/media]

 

[eaglesaquarium]

That was awesome... and is the tank lit by 'sunlight'?!    Wow...
 
 
Awesome tank... My wife would never let me have one that big though...

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Before you all get excited about how smart those fish might be, I would suggest you Google "classical conditioning." If you are too lazy, then think Pavlov's dog.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

While that is true TTA... the notion of conditioning implies their ability to remember something longer than the standard 2 seconds that is often bantered about as the memory span of a goldfish.  It goes beyond mere 'instinct'.  They have 'learned' a behavior associated with something else.

 

[Chad]

It can be argued that all learning is conditioning. Experience's affect on behavior.

 

[snazy]

Before you all get excited about how smart those fish might be, I would suggest you Google "classical conditioning." If you are too lazy, then think Pavlov's dog.

 
They don't have to be smart for us to love them and take care of them. The problem is that we've gone so bad we think we should be humane only towards humans and we can't even get that part right.

 

[Baccus]

Fish are actually pretty smart and it seems able to count too. There is a fascinating article dedicated to the intelligence of fish in the magazine Popular Fish Keeping. Its a new publication for the summer 2013.

 

[Chad]

It's hard to imagine the body language a fish would use to indicate counting!