What Is The Smartest Fish?

[AngusL]

WHAT IS THE SMARTEST FISH and what is the dumbest?

 

[smegforbrains]

Now there's a question to start a lively debate

 

[Schmill]

Smartest fish are Neon Tetras or Cardinals as they love to School.....

(of course you didn't see that one coming.... )

Appologies in advance!

 

[Tasha89]

Hmmm, my betta is quite smart. Well...maybe not "smart" as he fights with his reflection! Silly boy! But he's full of personality to say the least!

 

[Attilauk]

my Kribensis watches TV, but considering the rubbish my missus has on most of the time im not so sure you could call it smart

 

[SharonCC]

My fish are all BRILLIANT!!! ....I do find Red Eyed Tetras a little dumb, though...

 

[Gruffle]

I'd say most new world cichlids seem to be quite clever as far as fish are concerned, eg my Firemouth recognises me and knows where its food comes from, bobs up and down as if to say "FEED ME!" when I sit next to the tank.

Most carp are very intelligient, I was an avid angler for over 10 years and they are very very sneaky and hard to trick. They must be pretty clever to make many grown men spend the best parts of their weekend waiting to have a glorified tug of war with a fish!

 

[SharonCC]

Well, either the Carp are really clever or the men are really dumb!

 

[Schmill]

Well, either the Carp are really clever or the men are really dumb!

Not sure what that says about women though...

How many women do you know who can persuade ONE man to to wait outside for her, no matter the weather, just waiting for her to call to him. Constantly teasing him with promises that she'll be there in a minute, only for the man to still be sat there hours later with nothing?

Carp (and other fish) seem to manage it with whole shorelines of men, so it would seem that the carp have the men well trained, and the women have a thing or to to learn from the carp - lol

 

[Jallen]

Oscar, no question. They are very intelligent. They will move your gravel around, play with ping pong balls, play with their live food, jump for food (out of your hand), they can also be trained to roll over for food or to come up to your hand and rub its head against it.

Smart fish, plus tiger oscars look awesome.

 

[AdAndrews]

elephant nose fish are meant to be pretty smart [URL="http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile42.html"]http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile42.html[/URL]

fancy goldfish have to be the dumb fish, retards

 

[rdd1952]

I have always heard that carp were smart and like Gruffle, I have fished for them a lot in the past and they are very finicky.

 

[Tasha89]

elephant nose fish are meant to be pretty smart <a href="http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile42.html" target="_blank">http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile42.html</a>

fancy goldfish have to be the dumb fish, retards

Haha! How weird looking are those little critters?! lol

I love weird and colourful fish but never seem to have the right size tank...or tank mates. (Unfortunately my betta is VERY territorial!) X

 

[Jallen]

elephant nose fish are meant to be pretty smart <a href="http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile42.html" target="_blank">http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile42.html</a>

fancy goldfish have to be the dumb fish, retards

Agreed about the fancy goldfish, I'd never keep one, it's basically buying into the breeding of malformed creatures.

And those elephant nose fish are very interesting. I watched a documentary (I watch A LOT of documentaries) which had them in it, and they actually communicate to each other via electrical signals. Very interesting, and yet I find the whole concept of keeping fish sad... taking something so amazing from its natural habitat and keeping it in a box for our amusement
But it is interesting of course...

 

[Colin_T]

Well, either the Carp are really clever or the men are really dumb!

the latter me thinks

but on the whole, wild caught fishes are smarter than captive bred, and predatory fish are smarter than herbivores. The predators have to be smart to catch dinner and wild caught fish have to track down their food. Whereas captive bred fishes only need to wait for their owner to come and give them some food. And the food is usually offered in the same spot each day.

We got some wild caught Melanotaenia boesemani (rainbowfish) in the shop many years ago and they were small (less than 2inches) so we stuck them in a 6ft tank with some big cardinal tetras. The fish were fine the first day but on the second day the boesemani decided the cardinals were fair game. The rainbows split into 2 groups and herded the cardinals into a corner. One group swam back and forwards stopping the cardinals from getting past. The second group of boesemanis went in from the side and proceeded to rip into the tetras. Any tetras that got out of the corner got attacked by the first group.
I have seen the same thing happen in Geraldton when a group of 2ft long tailor trapped a huge school of bait-fish in the boat harbour. The tailor split into 3 groups, one group swam back and forwards preventing the bait-fish from escaping back into the deeper water. The other two groups moved in from the sides and got stuck into the fish. This feeding frenzy continued for about 20minutes. I threw a lure into the middle of them but didn't catch anything. The fish knew the difference between a lure and the real thing (live fish).