Freshwater fish with the most personality and intelligence

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Nepherael

Nepherael

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A lot of us look at fish and notice how beautiful they are but I only see this type of thing mentioned every once in a while. Of course we develop a bond with our fish and love their personalities but I thought we could get a good discussion going on which fish might be more noticeable in these two traits.

Ill start:

I've read that elephant nose fish will play with a ball of tin foil. This is thought to be due to the electrical properties of the tin foil in conjunction with their electrically charged nose. Who doesn't want to watch their fish play with a ball like a little puppy =)

I've also read Oscars have highly developed personalities to where when they are in a certain a certain mood it is more expressed than other fish. Owners have said they know when their Oscar is upset, happy, depressed, Et al.

Any fun stuff like that that you know of? I'm really interested in getting an elephant nose fish for the possibility of seeing them play and also love any fish that shows a heightened intelligence (I don't necessarily mean that about the ball rolling lol)
 
stormywendyann

stormywendyann

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My Oscar shows an awareness of me and the room around him. I put "safe" toys for him in the tank and he will actually play with them until he gets bored. I think that he shows sensativety and intelligence.
 
Nepherael

Nepherael

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stormywendyann said:
My Oscar shows an awareness of me and the room around him. I put "safe" toys for him in the tank and he will actually play with them until he gets bored. I think that he shows sensativety and intelligence.
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You are actually the person I was speaking about in my post. I had been thinking about the elephant nose fish I saw the other than saw you type that up and looked up Oscars right after and it made me want to look more into stuff like that. Fish that go beyond just survival and procreation and stuff like that.
 
allaboutfish

allaboutfish

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most cichlids have personalitys. my blood parrot, kirin parrot, angels, cutteri cichlids, and my festivum all have their own personalitys and all pay attention to whats outside the tank.

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Nepherael

Nepherael

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I agree about the angels. Those are the only cichlids I've had experience with. I absolutely love them and they always want to be by me even if it isn't feeding time. They also love to hate my gravel vac XD
 
BettaFishMommy

BettaFishMommy

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i have had a number of different fish with great personalities, going above and beyond what most people think a fish 'acts' like.

one of my angels would follow me back and forth across the tank, whether i had food or not. i could also hand feed this angel - if my hand went in the tank, he would come over right away. sometimes if i didn't have food, he'd butt my finger with his mouth.

my oscar is currently the king of personality around here, and is a true 'fish-dog'. he wiggles for me every time i go up to the tank. he stares at me from across the room. he plays with a floating plastic ball. he 'plays' kill the filter intake on a daily basis, lol. he lets me pet him and even cup my hand under him in the water to hold him.

my betta is pretty high in the personality department too. he will come out from the plants every time i go near that tank and wiggle his lil tail fin for me. he also will swim into my hand when i have it in the water.
 
H2Ogal

H2Ogal

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Bettas are very good at recognizing people and begging for food, lol!

Laughter aside, I am fascinated by their ability/willingness to interact with people — which can be quite evident even with bettas that are still in the store cups. Some bettas simply notice when people approach and will turn to look directly into the person's eyes. That's the part of their behavior that I believe really makes them stand out. Lots of fish learn that an approaching person means food and will the front of a tank at feeding time — but a betta can be so focused on the face of the person that they can fail to see the hand dropping food into the water. It doesn't take long to teach the fish to follow the hand — but even then they continue to look/interact directly with their person. :)

Bettas are both curious and cautious and will immediately investigate anything new, and some owners like to periodically rearrange their bettas' tanks to add/remove decor like caves/pots, floating logs, etc. so that the betta doesn't grow bored. I don't think it's "play" like what oscars do, but it's certainly fun to watch a betta decide that something is good for swimming through, under or around. Or for napping on, which they love to do with pretty much any broad surface, from plants leaves to the substrate. They are great nappers.
 
Nepherael

Nepherael

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I have been looking into betta fish lately. I always thought they could only be kept by themselves. I wonder how one would fare with a couple Molly's, guppies, angelfish, and bumblebee gobies?
 
allaboutfish

allaboutfish

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Nepherael said:
I have been looking into betta fish lately. I always thought they could only be kept by themselves. I wonder how one would fare with a couple Molly's, guppies, angelfish, and bumblebee gobies?
Click to expand...
most wont do well with guppies.

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