Are goldfish the smartest common aquaria fish?

[GrahamC]

http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/goldfish-do-not-have-a-3-second-memory/

I'm actually surprised at how responsive they are. I've got some WCMM in the same tank, but it's only the goldfish who swarm to greet me when I approach as they suspect it's feeding time. If my wife goes near to try and kill them by turning off their filter which is too noisy for her while she cooks, they just ignore her. My other tropical fish don't seem to respond in anyway to my presence near their tanks, except the BN's which skitter under a log, or try find some cavity in which to suffocate themselves.

Goldfish are smart, have good taste, and look pretty. Perhaps a 1000 years of selective breeding has put pressure on those other attributes we attribute to intelligence when breeders thought they were only breeding for body shape, colour and tails.

[livingart]

they aren't smart

it's just cupboard love

[CodKing]

Cool little article. Big fan of goldfish 8) My 3 lads are very entertaining.

[ally07]

No doubt that goldfish are smart, but oscars have also been trained to do tricks (going through hoops, etc).. So maybe the researchers only used goldfish because they are the 'go-to' aquarium fish instead of using a variety of other fish to compare IQs.

[amtiskaw]

I saw a Mythbusters episode when they disproved the 3 sec memory myth. They put several dividers in the tank, with openings at different locations on each divider. They timed how long it took fish to get from one end to the other for food, and the fish sussed it out fairly quickly and lap times went down as they learned the maze.

Then they took the dividers out for a week or so. When they put them back in, the fish still had faster times than before they'd learned the maze.

Mythbuster or Top Gear presenter - dream job for me

[GrahamC]

Sites now seem to say a 3 month memory, and that link above says 1 year but they also said they released the goldfish into the sea, and they came back :slfg: