Can fish be trained?

[BioFilter]

Can a fish be trained to do a trick? I think my fish are partially trained. I feed them at the same time every day and they know when it is feeding time and are ready. If they can learn this, wouldn't it be possible that they can learn other things?

 

[moondreamer7]

Some certainly can be trained!
My dad had Oscars that would pull on a sinker in the water that would ring a bell whenever they wanted food.

Eventually he had to remove the bell cause those pigs are always hungry LOL so you can imagine all the noise!

And many other fish can be "trained" to eat from your hand like peacock eels, ropefish etc.. but some don't consider this a "trick".

My ropefish will instantly swim through my fingers when I put my hand in the water "begging" for food and they get it! same goes for my tire track eel and peacock eel.

 

[Jack459]

i guess you never saw the mythbuster episode with the goldfish lol. They trained goldfish to swim through a line of rings

 

[hmoob_fisherman]

i guess you never saw the mythbuster episode with the goldfish lol. They trained goldfish to swim through a line of rings

it kinda looked fake to me, the goldfish's tails weren't even moving...it looked like they just glided through the water....unless i saw a different one...

 

[moondreamer7]

i guess you never saw the mythbuster episode with the goldfish lol. They trained goldfish to swim through a line of rings

I saw that episode!

The myth was that goldfish only had 30 seconds of memory. They disproved that cause the goldfish were able to retain the knowledge on how to swim through the "maze" to find the food which obviously means they remember things much longer then 30 seconds otherwise they it would not have worked.

It was pretty interesting to say the least and wonder what could happen with more complicated "mazes" and tests if someone dedicated some time and research into it more.

I remember watching about a lady with her betta that she trained to jump out of the water and back in the water for food. ANd the betta did do it with some coaxing. Was pretty cool but could be coincidence.

 

[Rbishop]

I've had numerous cichlids that would play catch with me...they would knock a ping pong ball back out whenever we tossed it in.

 

[BioFilter]

Fish have to have memories longer than 30 seconds, at least some of them. Like in my case, especially with the clown loaches, they know when it is 5:00 pm, feeding time and they remember this daily.

 

[Aussie_hippie_2]

"I remember watching about a lady with her betta that she trained to jump out of the water and back in the water for food. ANd the betta did do it with some coaxing. Was pretty cool but could be coincidence."

I've trained my female betta to do this. Everytime I open the hood with food she leaps out of the water at which point I give her a treat. Not the smartest thing to do I guess...

 

[Malefic23]

I dunno if you'd call it training, but my plecos trained themselves to bump the tank lid for nose petting, to take food from the hand, and to play with a ping pong ball.

 

[CaitxSith]

man if my fish can do tricks instead of biting me

I liked my goldfish better lol. he would "talk" when he wanted food...

seems like goldfish are easiest to train, i guess...