Can you classically condition fish?

[aquarius]

I have my fish trained to come to the top of the tank when I tap the glass. every feeding time I tap the glass twice and imeadietly all of the fish come to the surface.

what if you tap only once on the glass?

 

[rsz]

when the light turns on in the morning, my fish all swim near the surface (you should see the dirty look they give me if i don't feed them!!), and in the evening when i'm just doing homework or watching tv or something, they all watch me like 'you know, we wouldn't mind if you fed us just a little bit early'!!

 

[aschueler]

Classical conditioning has never really shown great results with punishment to model behavior.

The best way to model behavior is positive reinforcement (plus whatever neutral stimulus you intend to associate it with).

Having done some of this in real life with real animals, I can say it's probably a hell of a lot easier to get less aggressive fish

 

[aquarius]

i can imagine using positive reinforcement with cats or dogs but how would i use it with fish, especially concerning agression? am i suppose to reward the fish for not being agressive? and how would i do that?

 

[aschueler]

I'm not sure, and I think it would only last a short while anyway (rapid extinction) without continuous training, since this fish's tendency is naturally toward agression.

 

[aquarius]

that's true. can't go against nature, then i guess situation is hopeless