FW Fish Memory Retention?

kooter

kooter

AquaMan
Dec 14, 2003
701
13
18
Mission, BC
Do fish have a memory retention at all or is it all instinctive behaviours?
Like when you first turn on the light and put food in the tank. If you do that every day, do they associate light = food??
 
My fiance was in teh zoology department at NC State and they were obsessed with fish (all examples were fish related). They said fish only have a memory of a couple seconds. I really want to doubt this because in the past it seems fish do learn when food comes. Also fish would never learn to not be shy if this were the case. Maybe their short-term memory is a couple seconds but do they have minimal long-term memory?
 
I think it depends on the fish. I saw a show once where they trained goldfish (over the course of a month) to swim through rings to get their food. They originally used dividers with holes in them and eventually moved to rings that were free standing at the same heights the holes in the dividers were at.
 
Yeah they must have some type of memory. I mean some fish get stressed out and take a while to adjust to their surroundings....getting comfortable indicates some type of memory. Also, they definatley know when food is coming.

hurricanejedi, is that your cat? Amazing looking.
 
i agree, they must have some type of memory because everytime someone approaches any tank in my room everyone inside thinks its feeding time and starts to beg for food at the front of the tank. If nothing comes then they eventually lose interest and go back to swimming around. My killifish are the most interetsing to watch because everytime i open the lid they rush to a certain spot where the food always falls for them. maybe its just the instinct to find food that makes them remember? i dunno?
 
knashash said:
hurricanejedi, is that your cat? Amazing looking.
Click to expand...
Yes thats my cat. She's an F3 Bengal. I'm starting a cattery with bengals as my primary fascination is with cats (sorry fish people!). I've got a visiting stud in the house right now so hope all goes well ;) . I've also got a silver Savannah (looks similar only a silver color and different face).
http://www.solaritybengals.com
 
bubbles42151 said:
i agree, they must have some type of memory because everytime someone approaches any tank in my room everyone inside thinks its feeding time and starts to beg for food at the front of the tank. If nothing comes then they eventually lose interest and go back to swimming around. My killifish are the most interetsing to watch because everytime i open the lid they rush to a certain spot where the food always falls for them. maybe its just the instinct to find food that makes them remember? i dunno?
Click to expand...
Maybe its like Pavlov's dog and is stimuli/response conditioning.
 
I don't know about short-term memory, but captive fish have lots of learned behaviors. My catfish, down to glass cats (schooling fish of otherwise remarkably small brainpower) know what time it is - in relation to lights on (timed) and feeding time, which is late in their day. They come out ~ 1/2 hour prior to catfish feeding time from their usual "hanging in the current" area under the floating leaves of Vals and circle endlessly in the area where I feed near the surface at the opposite end of the tank. They are joined within minutes of normal feeding time by the school of debauwi cats. If I am late, they wait a bit over an hour and then return to normal positions and activity. The larger crepuscular cats behave similarly, and in a more complex situation as they are fed only on alternate days. Definite learned behavior and long-term memory.

Cichlids and puffers (much brighter fish IME & IMHO) can be trained fairly easily.
 
i'd say it goes species by species. My Oscars not only viewd and recognized the food container but who had it too. if it was not my wife or myself they would go to the back of the tank. if it was the wife or myself we had to be careful on opening the tank so they didn't jump out at us.

i had a swamp eel the every week started to bind the floating grasses/plants together so when i put in the guppies the next day they'd hide and school there and he reached under and gobble them up.

meanwhile i didnlt think that the guppies, mollies, SAE and tetras were that impresive on the IQ meter.
 
When I feed my african cichlids I turn off the filters prior to putting in the food.

The fish have equated filters off=feeding time.

Interestingly, I can drop an algae wafer in the tank while the filters are on and they will go nuts over it at the bottom of the tank...I turn the filters off and they leave the wafer and head up to the surface to be fed!

I turn off the filters during feeding time in all my tanks. It takes new fish about 3 days to "learn" (it takes new fry about a week).

Even my catfish come out of the woodworks in search of food when the filters are turned off. They definately have a memory (conditioned reflex or whatever you want to call it) that more than a few seconds long.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom