How smart are our SW fish?

jrpark22000

jrpark22000

Premium member
Who wants to share the ways their fish have left you wondering?



I dismissed it the first few times but now it is hard to ignore. My sargassum trigger has learned I come to the tank if it splashes. I feed frozen every night about 7:40. If I have not feed and am sitting within eyesight of the tank after this time the trigger splashes. It will splash multiple times. It started as I always come and investigate splashing events when I am present. Partially to see WTF is going on and also as I don't like to wash the salt water off the wall.

Really, a fish trained me to feed it?!!!
 
Nice mine start at about 7 pm to all hang out in the right corner of the tank because that's where I sit the food for it to thaw
 
My fish know I get home from work around 6pm and all head towards the top of the tank and wait. I generally feed them shortly after I get home.
 
Yeah, similarly all of mine know when the autofeeder is scheduled to go off. I'm amazed at how a reef fish can adapt so well. This is the same fish that swim circles around a powerhead for an hour or more a day and has never entered 1/4 of the tank. I can only imagine what goes through the fish's mind, but it is fun to think about.
 
my picasso trigger would spit water at my gf whenever she came by the tank. only her, no one else ever got water spit on them. My current crew all know i bring food, my blue face angel follows me anywhere i might be looking at in tank.
 
My fish know exactly when the auto feeder is about to go too. They also know I'm about to feed frozen when I take the screen top off any they go nuts. My dang cleaner shrimp goes directly to my dendro whenever I feed because he likes to eat the stuff it catches instead of catching the food itself.
Most impressive to me is when my lmb sits on his veggie clip to show me it's empty. He makes a big show of it and then gets off when he thinks I'm gone.
 
My story is a little different I had a clown goby in my 125g start to bother my sps. I tried and tried to catch him and I never could. One day I found him on a birdnest colony so I broke it off and netted it with him in it. I shook him out in the sump and moved the colony back to the display. I put put some pvc down in the sump and fed him and told him good night . Little did I no he was going to finding nemo into the return pump through the return plumbing and back on to his favorite sps perch in the display. I figured that with a fish with these skills I cant get rid of him so that is why I built a pico for him
 
pretty much all my fish come to the middle back of the tank (in wall) when I walk into the fishroom, because that's where I feed them...Many of them will poke their heads out of the water, it's kinda funny and my elegant wrasse spits water at me.
 
Hyperlitexr50 said:
My story is a little different I had a clown goby in my 125g start to bother my sps. I tried and tried to catch him and I never could. One day I found him on a birdnest colony so I broke it off and netted it with him in it. I shook him out in the sump and moved the colony back to the display. I put put some pvc down in the sump and fed him and told him good night . Little did I no he was going to finding nemo into the return pump through the return plumbing and back on to his favorite sps perch in the display. I figured that with a fish with these skills I cant get rid of him so that is why I built a pico for him
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Wow, that's incredible!
 
I've kept freshwater tanks nearly my entire life and for the few years I kept fish only marine tanks, I was amazed at how intelligent the fish were! They learn and adapt! Only within the last three months have I been back into the marine hobby, and am once again astounded at how smart they are! I still have a planted FW tank going and the fish are just not the same intelligence-wise. In my experience, I've found that least to most intelligent are your basic community FW fish (tetras, swords, guppies, etc), then the cichlids, and then marine fish. Im sure there will be your outliers, but when all is said and done, marine fish are definitely the brightest lol!
 
Gotta love triggers!! Not sure what happened to the FW fish along the evolutionary path.. lol, seems like a lot of them dumbed things down some....
 
I've seem some strange patterns. Rear of the tank I used to have MP40 & that's the only circular area that is clear of coraline. During feeding time every single fish peep through that small ring & act like little puppies which is real nice to watch.
Interesting part was, I had to remove my PBT to isolate him for 10 days because of aggression & he was in a different tank in a different room. After 10 days as soon as I added him back within 3 seconds, he was peeping at me through the key hole wagging & seeing what he was going to be fed.
Apparently Fish have memory I feel.
 
dohc97 said:
my picasso trigger would spit water at my gf whenever she came by the tank. only her...
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Herbie said:
Most impressive to me is when my lmb sits on his veggie clip to show me it's empty. He makes a big show of it and then gets off when he thinks I'm gone.
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It's amazing how a fish can have more than just a personality, they can recognize unique people and have different actions for them. Comparing my good, but dimwitted basset mutt to the trigger it shocking on how similarly they accept training.

Hyperlitexr50 said:
Little did I no he was going to finding nemo into the return pump through the return plumbing and back on to his favorite sps perch in the display.
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Made it through the return pump? WOW, that fish has a story to tell!
 
gig said:
Many of them will poke their heads out of the water, it's kinda funny and my elegant wrasse spits water at me...it's more like pavlov's dogs than smart
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Even though it conditional training, it is still fun to see. I had to modify the autofeeder chute on my tank. The fish kept spitting up the chute soaking the feeder. I had a hard time trying to tell them it wouldn't work, but an acrylic shield got the message across.

thinkfuture said:
every single fish peep through that small ring & act like little puppies which is real nice to watch....
After 10 days as soon as I added him back within 3 seconds, he was peeping at me through the key hole wagging & seeing what he was going to be fed. Apparently Fish have memory I feel.
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10 days and an intermediate habitat? That is pretty cool.
 
I have 3 anglers, and two yellow leaf fish. All 5 are trained to eat ghost shrimp out of a net. As soon as they see the net, they all hobble their way towards it, like a magnetic force drawing them in. Lol. It's really entertaining to watch. I guess they can be decribed as dumb also, cause it will literally take me two minues to catch them all if I needed to. I also have a seahorse tank setup right next to my computer desk. When I sit down, they come to the corner of the glass, and do their little feed me dance.
 
My miniatus grouper is pretty slick he knows that at about 7 30 I should be walking down stairs to feed him. He will bolt to the same cave every time and peak his head around the corner and watch me. Once I drop the silverside in the tank he will jerk his head back in the cave and wait and as soon as it gets to the opening he will grab it. If he is not hungry that day he wont go any where near the cave.

My Snowflake eel will actually leave his cave on the days he is hungry. When I feed the other fish the Snowflake will come out of his cave and swim to the top to let me know he is hungry which is about every 2 days.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2
 
I've have some places in the back where there are some "windows" where no coraline has grown, I'll typically see my Orange shoulder tang, sailfin or regal angel sitting there looking at me when I go into the fishroom, it's funny
 
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