Yes fish can do tricks

[Caryl]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/kids ... nfish.html

[Luke*]

dang now why didn't I think of that? Na I already know my discus know that I = food time

[fishboi]

unbelievable i thought it was taking the mickey at the start before i went to this page

http://www.fish-school.com/gallery.htm

[meesheelly]

Anyone gonna give it a try?

[Tsarmina]

the first trick i would like my fish to learn is to line up, in single file, and then slowly swim past me, do a little spin, and then wait on the bottom until the last one has finished.

that way i can check each fish for any health issues and not have to worry about seeing the same fish 20 odd times or missing any out.

now, would that be considered wishful thinking??

[me love fishy]

Do any of you guys watch mythbusters?

They did an experiment to prove that goldfish have a longer than 3 second memory. Jamie and Adam (the two mythbusters) each had some fish and Jamie managed to teach his to go through a sort of net maze to get to the food, it was quite amazing.

I always thought fish were smarter than that anyway, but it was nice to see it actually proved on TV.

I have noticed that in Animates whenever the staff go near the tanks the fish go nuts as they think they are going to get fed, when anyone else goes near the tanks they just swim around normally. My theory is that this is because the animates staff wear orange shirts and hardly anyone else wears orange.

[Caryl]

I saw that Mythbusters too.

Many fish recognise their owners, no matter what they are wearing, and can differentiate between them and other people.

[Luke*]

Particularly bigger fish, like many cichlids like discus. I assume this is because they have a bigger brain than others.

[Caper]

Tsarmina wrote:

the first trick i would like my fish to learn is to line up, in single file, and then slowly swim past me, do a little spin, and then wait on the bottom until the last one has finished.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Check with, ah shoot can't remember :oops: , WHO ARE YOU, that has trained their fishies in synchronized swimming :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[jamestothemax]

i was reading in one of my oscar books that once you have trained them to swim through the hoop like shown in those links that you can take it one step further.

By slowly raising the hoop out of the water they learn to jump out of the water and through the hoop. apparently with oscars its best to actually use a different reward than food as well. you are meant to leave the hoop in the tank for awhile and every time they swim through it you ring a bell. they soon pick up what to do when the bell is rung.

i figure maybe the Napier marine land could just train some oscars to do tricks instead of getting new dolphins................

[meesheelly]

I like to wiggle my fingers in fromnt of the cichlid tank in animates. They go crazy. And my boyfriend thinks that i look crazy doing it, so yay!

[sharn]

jamie- the bell thing has been done by a few people, most people end up saying that the oscars get really annoying cause they always jump to ring the bells. this was when food was used as a reward though. i was going to attempt it and have no doubts Frank could do it but i really dont want a bell ringing 24/7 :lol:

the hoop trick would probably be quite easy also, the jumping part might be a bit harder and probably not the best idea to teach them as they are jumpers anyway and often end up on the floors if their lids arent on and heavy i have seen my O get completley out of the water during a random spaz and it wasnt that great, especially when your next to the tank when he does it, talk about shower!!! :lol:

im not sure what reward you could use other than food though?

[jamestothemax]

i think teh way they did it was to actually use the bell as the reward. guess a bit like clicker training with dogs.

i think they actually chose to train the oscars to jump through hoops because of thier ability to jump. i know mine used to jump heaps. even got my hand a foot and a half above the tank one day.

i know heaps of people train their gold fish to swim into their hands to be lifted out of teh water for judging in competitions and stuff.

[Luke*]

lol @ sharn and james. Sounds neat

[Damiana]

What you do is associate the food reward with another stimulus. The primary stimulus is the food, but since you can't feed them all day and they eventually satiate (theoretically, some fish are piggies ), its not practical to use to maintain the behaviour. So you can use a light, a noise, whatever, in conjunction with the food for a while. Then just the secondary reinforcer is used, with an occasional food pairing just to keep them wanting it. *removes psych student hat*