Guppy Tricks

[fishboy2]

Hey,
does anyone know how to make guppies jump out of the water for food. Im obviously not gonna do anythin 2 hurt them, its just that in the wild they catch mosquitos out of the water...
thanx

 

[hyak2]

Hey,
does anyone know how to make guppies jump out of the water for food. Im obviously not gonna do anythin 2 hurt them, its just that in the wild they catch mosquitos out of the water...
thanx

Hi, I have heard of this being done alot through my animal training work. If you are seriously interested in this kind of thing then read Karen Pryor's 'don't shoot the dog' which is a fantastic book just for that subject.

Basically you need to encourage your fish to follow a target for a food reward. The trick is to get the reward to the fish immediately as it does what you want to encourage positive behaviour. Then you can move your target about over the water and hopefully get a high jumping guppy. It's a pretty mean feat if you can achieve it - but its a bit more impressive when you do it with an animal that you can actually see LOL!

 

[Duck and Dive]

You will spend ages training it, and if you train it to often it will get fat!

 

[shroob]

Will it be possible with guppies, no offense but I don't think they are the most intelligent fish. I've seen it done with larger cichlids (theres a great video on youtube where an oscar has been trained to swim through hoops). Though the practice of making fish jump has been discouraged through fear of the fish hurting themselves.

 

[hyak2]

Will it be possible with guppies, no offense but I don't think they are the most intelligent fish. I've seen it done with larger cichlids (theres a great video on youtube where an oscar has been trained to swim through hoops). Though the practice of making fish jump has been discouraged through fear of the fish hurting themselves.

Luckily to train any animal, it doesn't need to be that intelligent, just active and greedy. It defiinately can be done with guppies as I know of several instances where they have been trained and also seen film of it too. Another trick I have seen is to get the guppy to jump over a matchstick floating in the water - like a bar jump. So it should definately be possible. Good luck with your training. It will help to keep the fish on its own for training and also you will have to divide the food up into absolutely minute little rewards - so it can have several rewards before it gets full.....

 

[chibi]

I've had dozens and dozens of guppies and have never seen them jump at all. You can try it, but I don't think you'll even get them out of the water...

 

[shroob]

Will it be possible with guppies, no offense but I don't think they are the most intelligent fish. I've seen it done with larger cichlids (theres a great video on youtube where an oscar has been trained to swim through hoops). Though the practice of making fish jump has been discouraged through fear of the fish hurting themselves.

Luckily to train any animal, it doesn't need to be that intelligent, just active and greedy. It defiinately can be done with guppies as I know of several instances where they have been trained and also seen film of it too. Another trick I have seen is to get the guppy to jump over a matchstick floating in the water - like a bar jump. So it should definately be possible. Good luck with your training. It will help to keep the fish on its own for training and also you will have to divide the food up into absolutely minute little rewards - so it can have several rewards before it gets full.....

Got a link to the video of guppies jumping? I'm not doubting just would really like to see it.

 

[hyak2]

Will it be possible with guppies, no offense but I don't think they are the most intelligent fish. I've seen it done with larger cichlids (theres a great video on youtube where an oscar has been trained to swim through hoops). Though the practice of making fish jump has been discouraged through fear of the fish hurting themselves.

Luckily to train any animal, it doesn't need to be that intelligent, just active and greedy. It defiinately can be done with guppies as I know of several instances where they have been trained and also seen film of it too. Another trick I have seen is to get the guppy to jump over a matchstick floating in the water - like a bar jump. So it should definately be possible. Good luck with your training. It will help to keep the fish on its own for training and also you will have to divide the food up into absolutely minute little rewards - so it can have several rewards before it gets full.....

Got a link to the video of guppies jumping? I'm not doubting just would really like to see it.

I'll have a look tonight, I'm sure there must be one around somewhere.........

 

[hyak2]

Couldn't find any links of guppies jumping - yet - but here are two other links with performing fish on them, pretty amazing stuff!

Goldfish

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQKZOaB6cY

Gold Gourami

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBaBtJ2MyuY

 

[SouthernCross]

Yep, my bettas and gouramis will do it, quite often they startle me when I least expect it! Bettas can actually jump very high, I've seen some good Youtube vids.