Fish Intelligence Study

[Cian McLiam]

Welcome back!
From the responses in the Earlier Poll, it is clear most fish dont watch enough television. So how are your fishes brains excercised everyday?
Does the enviornment the fish live in have an affect on their psychology and IQ?
Could the the sensory deprivation and boredom of living in a bare tank with nothing to look at other than a brick wall degenerate their mental ability?
What is the trade off in having perfectly healthy fish living in a sterile enviornment, such as a bare bottom tank, against an interesting and natural aquascape?
Are we as fishkepers and breeders producing the underwater equivalent of battery hens...
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Heres a link to a brief article on fish senses, how many are exercised by your fish everyday?

Ken

 

[BlackWolf0503]

Good article. I try to keep mine busy. My tank has 3 live plants (Wysteria, Amazon Sword, & tall something plant), a Rock Cave w/ mountains, a large branch with three off shoots, & and an air stone for them to play with. The gravel has alot of hills & valleys. I change locations of the Rock & branch every water change to give them variety. I'm gonna buy a few more pieces to swap in & out but I keep it all natural. The gravel layout will change also on a weekly basis. I keep my guys busy so they never get board with the same stuff.

 

[Sondan]

See I told you guys I am not a good fish squeezer. I am the lonely vote of modern tank.
Signed,
Sondan

 

[dixaisy930]

Well, mines mostly natural...I don't believe I've ever saw mini-pastel plastic slinkies growing in a lake or pond. But my cory's and ghost shrimp think they're interesting.

See I told you guys I am not a good fish squeezer

Fish squeezer?

 

[cichlidpersonality]

i keep my green sunfish on his toes, he has to jump for his food most of the time, and i also feed more tubifex than he can get before alot hit the bottom. he swished his tail stering up the gravel and then whips around and picks the worms out of the clowd.

i also put crawdads in occasionaly so he can have something to pick on, and something that takes effort and skill to eat. he has a method of getting them, he charges straight on, then grabs their face and throws them, then when they are getting reoriented he swims around them very fast and grabs them by the tail, then one quick shake and the tail is gone, leaving the head on the bottom for the other crayfish.

 

[lizard]

Right now I still have some plastic plants in my tank, but eventually I want to have all natural/live ones. I voted as having a natural tank though, as that fit best. There are terra-cotta flower pots in the tanks for the fish to hide in and PVC pipes (okay, those aren't natural). Eventually I want to have some wood in there. Substrate is gravel - a mix of brown and blue. My tanks are works in progress. I'd love to do a lot more with them, but since I'm attending a private college, money is an issue <sigh>. Someday...

Pamela
aka Lizard

 

[KimmyFishy89]

Mine is a mix of fake and live plants, with lots of nooks and cranys for them to hide in. My 30 gallon has four or five live plants, while my ten only has 3 though.

 

[piranha45]

My tanks have plastic/clay tunnels, driftwood, holey rocks and plastic plants

 

[Sondan]

Dix,
A fishy squeezer is what we call Fisheries majors in college. We means wildlife majors. Both majors take a lot of the same classes.
Statistics 1 and 2
Zoology
Taxonomy of Flowering Plants
Ecology
and a host of others.
So the next time you meet a fisheries biologist you can call them a "Fish Squeezer".
Signed,
Sondan

 

[dixaisy930]

lol, I had a horrible/hilarious image of you with a guppy between your fingers...sqeezing it...lol

 

[CFC]

Well actually i have a few "sterile" tanks with bare bottoms and the token plastic plant . They are for breeding and raising fry in.
3 of my tanks are the natural type with bogwood and live plants and our son has a modern type with bright coloured ornaments and plastic plants for his guppies.

 

[Cian McLiam]

CFC, sorry I should have clarified, breeding and raising tanks exempt as they arent permanent homes. This argument arose because I have a frreind who keeps Discus in 'sterile bare bottomed tanks' as their permanent homes and makes a case for their physical 'well being' being more important than 'aesthetics', but I pointed out the fish might not see it that way as it is them who have to live in the gloomy unfurnished tanks for the whole of their lives...

Ken

 

[nightlife20]

i voted the top one, because iv got live plants (even tho they are half eatern) a peice of bogwood and this rock shape thing with holes in it...

substrait is gravel, speckled red and gold with hints of blue.... looks better that it sounds lmao

 

[AquaNut]

My tanks are as natural as I can make them, for the most part. I've got heavily planted tanks with lots of rocks from nearby rivers and beaches and lots of bogwood. Only one of my tanks is a sand substrate however; the rest are gravel bottoms. I tend to buy natural or colourless gravel now, but I do have a couple of tanks with multi colour gravel from years gone by. I recently got my first convict cichlid and had to hunt high and low to find a couple of plastic plants for his tank; my 4 year old daughter hijacked the plastic plants long ago to be trees for her plastic dinosaurs.

 

[smb]

my 4 year old daughter hijacked the plastic plants long ago to be trees for her plastic dinosaurs.

LMAO!!!

I just have plastic plants with some lava rock and gravel sub. It's hard enough for me to keep live plants alive on my own let alone with piranha's and cichlids tearing them up.

Great polls lately, Ken. Very interesting articles and debates also. Keep it up. :smb: