ive often wondered about how a fish knows waht it is, does it look in the mirror and say, im a neon, ill go hang out with those other neons?
how does a neon know its a neon?
- Thread starter Hans
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I think they call it instinct 
I wonder if anyone has done a study like raising a neon with a group of rummynose and then introducing a school of neons-where would he go?
I wonder if anyone has done a study like raising a neon with a group of rummynose and then introducing a school of neons-where would he go?
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A lot of the schooling behavior has to do with the size and shape of the fish. Two groups of neons won't school if there is a huge difference in size, but two schools of similarly sized fish will mingle. Instinct has a lot to do with recognizing other fish--the lateral line plays a role in detecting chemicals that help fish stay together.
I know if I have a lone tetra or something, it will find similar fish to hang out with but I have also introduced fish such as my bloodfins when I had another bloodfin twice their size already in the tank and it took no time at all for them to seek eachother out and they now follow eachother around. Kyle
How do you know you're attracted to guys/girls? You see 'em and say "I wanna be with him/her!"
In-stinct!
In-stinct!
I think it has alot to do about size, habit and your surroundings. At one time I had 6 glo lites , 6 tiger barbs and 6 green tiger barbs in the same 10 g tank, all of the barbs survived but 4 of the glo lites died leaving 2( which after watching a show about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during WWII they were named Fat Man and Little Boy )Anyway back to the subject at hand, I moved the barbs to an 18 g and keeped the tetras in the 10 g adding 4 more glo lites and 6 neons, the two mentioned above schooled by themselves until I added tiger barb fry into the 10 g, now they school with the fry, kinda like showing the new kids on the block, the ropes. They grew up with barbs so they recognize barbs as their family, and they are extreamly happy with them....just thought I'd share.....
with them....just thought I'd share.....Ever seen a ticked off betta? Has no clue he's only a few inches of scale. He thinks he's the biggest, baddest fin around. Put up a mirror, and he's goingInstinct. Fish do not have the brains for complex thought--but we anthropomorphize them into quite complex critters.
