Smarter than you might think....

[Troy Valentine]

These fish never cease to amaze me,

My master bedroom is over 40 feet from my aquarium, and from that distance my fish can tell the difference between my wife and I. I tested this hypothesis serveral times before I was going to post this. I know that I might have a tendency to personify the creatures I care for, so I wanted to be certain.

The experiment:
My wife would stand outside the bedroom and the fish would continue to go about their fishy business foraging the reef for food. However, once I came out of the room the fish would hurry to the side of the tank that I feed them at. I repeated this several times, with my wife jumping up and down, trying to get the fishes attention. But they still wouldn't head to the side that I feed them at, until I stepped in to their view.
Now like many of you I have a very patient wife, who loves to look at the tank, but will have nothing to do with cleaning or feeding the tank.(except when her husband has a crazy idea to test the intelligence of the fish) :)
So the fish know me as the sole food provider.

Just think of how stressful this is to new fish. Being exposed to the land of the giants.... :)

I would like to here any other stories y'all might have that demonstrate how intelligent these little creatures are... ;)

[thomasj]

Everything I use to feed my fish is red, so they have become used to being fed when anything red comes near the tank. They all head to the "feeding corner" and wait for food when they see the red cup approaching :D

[MikeDeL]

I think the fish are playing a joke on you, they're like "watch this, everyone swim over here and the guy jumps out.....hahaha)
LOL

You ever play a trick on them, and wait for them to go to the side you always feed from, then feed the other side of the tank? LOL

[SuperXdude]

The red food cup drives my fish nuts.

I've also noticed if I have visitors, the fish hide from general view,
but if it's me, mrs superxdude, or the kids, they're fine and dandy.


SuperXdude

[blueboy]

i finally got a feeding stick for my mantis so i could train him to come out more, and when i want him to. after using it twice to feed over the last few days, today i put just the stick in the tank, no food, out she came and grabbed onto the stick. sweet, immediate gratification is rare in this hobby.

[Reef69]

I should try that...Mine comes out and chases the shrimp around..I wanna pet him..lol :-D

[blueboy]

it's actually not a stick that i use, it's a piece of rigid air tubing attached with a piece of flexible air hose to a large syringe. i use it for feeding everything, small foods can be sucked up and target fed, and larger chunks can be held on with suction for feeding the mantis and anemones. works great, and cost all of $0.64 to build.

[Reef69]

mind if i borrow your project?..lol..

[blueboy]

i considered putting this in the DIY section awhile back, but it's a pretty simple project, i didn't want to insult anyones creative abilities.

[Reef69]

yeah, i was thinking about doing the same thing , i cant reach my sun coral anymore so..i heard about the same tool from somebody else a while back

[CD]

We've got one - sounds exactly like what Abe is describing, and it is awesome for spot feeding. Only the smaller food items though. Larger mysis won't fit through the tubing, but it is great for feeding my zoas and blastos the frozen cyclop-eeze and rotifers. I have to use the old turkey baster for my sun coral, as they like the bigger sized mysis. ;)

Wendy

[Viet-Tin]

Well heres my story. When i lived in Hawaii i had a yellow tang that loved ogo. I was kind of tired of always buying it from the market so i tried to grow my own. I set the ogo tank next to my dt tank and my yellow tang would always be on that side. For a while i stopped feeding the tang ogo and i started feeding flakes and forzen foods. I was watching my tang and it kept swimming towards the top of the tank and i was wondering why. Well he swam to the bottom and darted straight up and out of the water right into the ogo tank and started to eat my ogo. I went and tried to find my container to extract him from the tank and put him back but had trouble so by the time i found it he had eatin all the ogo and sat there and let me scoop him out the tank and put him back. It was pretty amazing, i never knew tangs loved ogo that much.

[SuperXdude]

wtf is ogo?

:D

[falcondob]

What you are seeing is "operant conditioning". You are the "conditioned re-enforcer". Or big ugly moving thing (haven't met you, but I would bet we look ugly to fish) comes and then food appears, ipso facto, ugly thing means food. Pretty thing (haven't met her, but momma didn't raise no fool!) comes and no food appears. Therefore, pretty thing is to be ignored. This process has been proven to work on the simplest of life forms. It appears that is one of the building block behaviors that has allowed life to continue and evolve.

I am a falconer and we use the fact that living things respond to reward to train our birds to hunt with us. Pick up a book on operant conditioning or "clicker" training. With a little practice and creativity you could have your fish dancing on cue. And I am not kidding, it really works.