Has anyone else trained their fish to do tricks?

[Kmbishop111]

I'm ready to take my Angel on a traveling roadshow as a sideact. No, reallu, she seems bored a lot and I'm wanting to train her to do some tricks. Anyone else had any luck with this? Ideas? Pointers? I made her a hoop last night. lol Pics to follow....


I just discorvered she will do anything for bloodworms!!

 

[the loach]

Lol those pics are great in the first it really looks like she is running in that wheel and in the last she is casually swimming towards it. She looks good, doing any better?

I've seen a video of a dolphin fish (related to elephantnoses) doing tricks with a ball.
I can hand feed my porthole catfish and gourami's, if that's a trick.
I have weather loaches and can do anything with them they will jump or climb in my hand above water. You can pet them, have them swim through whatever, hold them, wear them like a ring, or take them out of the tank no problem. But.... it's not tricks. They are the tamest fish around, and easier to handle as most rodents.
Hand feed and pet a weather loach on 2 consecutive days, and you've got a friend for life.

 

[Kmbishop111]

Lol those pics are great in the first it really looks like she is running in that wheel and in the last she is casually swimming towards it. She looks good, doing any better?

I've seen a video of a dolphin fish (related to elephantnoses) doing tricks with a ball.
I can hand feed my porthole catfish and gourami's, if that's a trick.
I have weather loaches and can do anything with them they will jump or climb in my hand above water. You can pet them, have them swim through whatever, hold them, wear them like a ring, or take them out of the tank no problem. But.... it's not tricks. They are the tamest fish around, and easier to handle as most rodents.
Hand feed and pet a weather loach on 2 consecutive days, and you've got a friend for life.

You have my attention. I'm going to have to look up a weather loach and check compatibility!! lol That sounds like my kind of fish! As for Althea, she def has her appetite back in spades. She still has the red streak that runs outwards towards her eye and her mouth isn't completely normal yet, but she's doing much better!!

 

[the loach]

Weather loach, aka dojo loach (but "dojo" is Japanese for "loach" so that's kind of stupid)
Misgurnus anguillicaudatus.
They are very friendly, but temperature in your tank is too high for them, they're a temperate fish. You keep them in an unheated tank. Freshyfish just told me they are illegal in NY.

Not my video. But it shows how much they like to be petted and held.

Glad to hear Althea is doing better!

 

[Kmbishop111]

Why oh why did you have to make me fall in love with the weather loach in the video?? Ha! This can only mean one thing, another tank. I was planning a 55 or 70 at the first of the year anyway. I do see they love the Mystery Snails, a little too much in fact.

 

[the loach]

Lol, they are a weird fish, most people think they are like salamanders or something. Which fish doesn't mind to be out of the water?
There are also golden weather loaches.

They are the most sociable fish I've seen, so please keep at least 4 of them. A 55 or 70 is great. Easy to keep, and you can keep them with subtropical fish like rosy barbs or native fish. So much better suited to keep as goldfish. And true pets..

If there is any fish you can teach a trick it's a weather loach..

 

[fishorama]

Well, as much as I love a loachy story...Our first "common pleco" learned to "wink for a tabby". He'd roll his eyes & we'd reward him with a piece of tablet or wafer food. That became his way of begging, so cute!! We loved him!

I've always wanted to keep weather loaches, but they were illegal in MA, my last state before CA...then I got bitten by the hillstream loach bug...but dojos, some day!! Who doesn't want fish you can pet?!?! I do!

 

[Kmbishop111]

I have been working with getting Althea to follow my finger to the top and rewarding w food. Shes doing amazingly well in just an evening. It really is a sight to see the way my little darling loves a bloodworm!! She does prefer them dangling from the end of the syringe. I'm guessing that simulates "the catch"

I'm afraid I've created a big, gold, shiny monster. Who LOVES the taste of blood!!

 

[fishorama]

You should look for vids of goldfish tricks. I think there's a basketball 1 & football 1 & several others. Made me think of dog agility games, lol.

GF are temp compatible with dojos...there, that's my tempting thought for today. Both are social & large fish...

I've tried to convince my husband our pool could have some temperate fish in there, fish vs people soccer? But he actually uses the pool & was not very receptive to the idea...yet!

 

[the loach]

I would advise against keeping goldfish in a tank. Yes weather loaches get big too but they're like eels, a goldfish of the same length easily has 20 times the mass and bio load of 1 weather loach. If you want a similar looking fish get rosy barbs, they have those with fan tails and in different colors as well. There are many other subtropical and temperate fish suited as tank mates. If they don't do tricks the weather loaches will just have to make up for it ..

http://injaf.org/aquarium-fish/the-goldfish-section/what-size-tank-for-goldfish/