# Imagine What It Would Be Like To Be A Pet Fish



## Smells Fishy (17 Apr 2017)

Reading the thread regarding if it's cruel to keep fish in tanks bare bottom and devoid of anything got me thinking again so I thought I would share how shot through are fish must feel at times. Imagine this, the room your in now is your fish tank and then suddenly a great big hand crashes through the sealing, waving what is essentially a big hoover around, lifting and rearranging things around and just generally causing chaos. You look out your Windows and there's a huge face staring at you or a kid banging on them sending earthquakes through your life. We are so lucky that we are top of the food chain so its never going to happen to us un less aliens capture you and decide to take you home with them. I can't help but think sometimes what it must be like to be a pet. To me it basically means you have no control over your life. Ok a South American Leaf fish is going to be a picky eater and only except live food but things like that are exceptions. A fish can't stop you from doing a water change, what will is you not having any dechlorinator or a syphon. I ponder can a fish comprehend its daily mundain life? Arapaima might dew to the size it can reach, it must have a good grasp on life but is a Neon tetra going to, probably not. The Arapaima, if it was to ever be kept in captivity (it is) has a few advantages in understanding its life, first of all its going to be a wild caught fish so it knows this fish tank\public aquarium which is now it's home isn't natural to it or to its liking so is likely to question it a lot more, secondly since its such a large fish its brain has the potential to grow larger than most of the fishes total lengths we keep, so it definitely has the brain power to think the whole thing smells fishy. Fish like the Arapaima or a Mbu puffer i sort of cringe in aw when I see videos of them in captivity because it's just not right for them. If you watch cory's videos from Aquarium co op you know he has a Mbu and I think it's tank is something like 6ft L 2ft H 3ft W and that's a massive tank but personally if I owned Hank he would be in a 20 foot long tank but I'm not super rich just like pretty much everybody else so that's why you never see ideal tanks. Last year PFK did an article on fw puffers, cover of the mag was a Mbu and I think they recommend a minimum of 495L for it. A 5ft tank just isn't right for a real pet fish like that, doesn't matter how well it treated. Due to its brain size it wouldn't surprise me if its capable of all sorts of mental problems like depression, a Neon tetra isn't going to be depressed I'm fairly sure of that. When it's fully grown its brain is probably no bigger than a pin head. That's partly why I'm drawn to bigger fish since you get a vibe that they don't just swim around aimlessly, they are a lot more methodical and interactive, Oscars are a good example. Anyway this has turned into a early morning ramble so I'm going to post this and leave it there.


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## zozo (17 Apr 2017)

Hahaha, i thought about this a lot, especialy in the later days of my anglers carier.. The time i didn't catch anything i used for thinking.. Often thought, what wtf am i actualy doing and what does this mean for the fish.. 

So i tempt it to eat a snack than it gets a hook pulled into it's lip and its dragged out fithing for its life taken forcefully out of it's natural element into an alien atmosphere where it is sufocating. It is touched, the hook pulled from its lip, draged around, weight, stroked while trying to escape flapping like mad, scared for it's life. Sees light flashes all over from taking pics. Than it is throwen back into it's element. Completely stressed out, exhausted, dizzy and probably frustrated and feeling raped.

Then it gathers up again with the school of family and friends.. It tells his friends "You never guess what happened to me!?" "Im abducted! By Aliens!!"
And with the fear still in its eyes it tells the story.. All friends and family laughing and pointing at it and saying "Cmon you idiot! Aliens do not excist, chill out man, you need a shrink" And so nobody believes it and there it is, raped, hurt, stressed, frustrated and nobody to turn to. Only thing it can do is go on with its life and find food and hoping there isn't a hook hidden in it whit an alien at the other end.

And so i came to the conclussion, i'm the idiot, angling aint fun and above all aint a sport.. All other anglers i tell this to, also confirm i'm an idiot. But i threw all my rods and gear into the corner and never touched it again.

Still i keep fish in tanks.. But here i notice if you repsect their needs and be gentle, they get to know you.. In the first weeks it's a bit strange and scary for them.. But after while if you know what you are doing they all come and eat out of your hand. Some fish are also remarkably inteligent, i kinda guess they probably all are equaly as intelligent, there are several sp. just showing it more than others. After all we can't know what goes on in their tiny brains.. Maybe the ones not showing are thinking F... off idiot! And is just not interested to interact with you.. Others are and come looking when i clean the glass and hang around the hose when i do a water change and even show excitement and playfull gestures, speeding away and comming back, like they are playing catch me if you can, the same hierarchical game they play with eachother. I have some goldfish already for many years, they know me and my hands so well i do not need a net to get them out of the water. I do it with my hand..  If somebody else comes up, they immediately se it's not me and hide away.

Only thing you need to respect is they have eyes and ears and a nose.. And a very special lateral line sense organ and sense organs in their mouths.
All these organs are highly sensitive and they react to minute differences, things we probaly never even think about and probaly can't imagine what it feels like having such an organ..Since we can not know what they realy feel or what realy goes on in that tiny brain. We are beter off assuming their emotions are at least equal to ours if not more sensitive. I put my bet on the later..

Look at us, scientist state we only use 10% of our brain mass.. And then we are braging about our big brain? Practicaly it aint so big at all with this 10% only. See what disasters we achieved with only this 10%.. Maybe a fish uses its brain for the full 100% capacity, than maybe is it's tiny brain equal to ours in relation if not bigger. Maybe we are lucky a fish yet didn't develop hands, who knows what it would come up with. Probably would come up with the idea to slap a lot of us in the face hoping for them to wake up one day.


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## roadmaster (17 Apr 2017)

Believe most tropical fishes are only slightly smarter than the rock's or plant's they hide behind.
Yes they can be programmed to recognize the person feeding them,or trained to perform tricks followed by reward , but after that, they are just fishes.
Some behavior certainly ingrained within DNA  me thinks when I ponder how salmon are able to travel hundred's of miles to same spawning ground's where they were conceived.
Have caught same crappie and or Bass more than once in a single day of fishing.(one eyed,or part of fin missing).


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## zozo (17 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> but after that, they are just fishes



And what does this idea all justify?

Btw if a creature has a sense of hierarchical relationship with members of their sp. It is more than just beeing.


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## roadmaster (17 Apr 2017)

I mean that attempting to place human qualities on cold blooded fishes is delving very close to fantasy/wishful thinking.IMHO


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## rebel (17 Apr 2017)

Holla, interesting reading here. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism


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## BubblingUnder (17 Apr 2017)

"Imagine What It Would Be Like To Be A Pet Fish"
1) Safe from predators
2) No famine food always available
3) Appropriate water quality
4) Possible treatment for parasites/diseases

Not a bad life for a fish with a tiny brain whose only ambition is to stay alive.


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## zozo (17 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> I mean that attempting to place human qualities on cold blooded fishes is delving very close to fantasy/wishful thinking.IMHO


And that they have non of these qualities, is based on what facts?  

I've yet not red about a device able to measure it. It more likely is based upon a simular kind of fantasy, call it scientific believe or assumptions if you wish.


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## KipperSarnie (17 Apr 2017)

Benefit of the doubt?
Surely it is better to treat a moron as intelligent than it is to treat intelligence as a moron??


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## PARAGUAY (17 Apr 2017)

This is a small extract I read from a lady talking about her Sailfin plec  "recently learned to swim to the water surface and flips over belly up eats flake with the Goldfish with his mouth facing up and then returns to his usual swimming pattern". Learned this watching the Goldfish of course.Intelligent ?Got to be


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## roadmaster (18 Apr 2017)

zozo said:


> And that they have non of these qualities, is based on what facts?
> 
> I've yet not red about a device able to measure it. It more likely is based upon a simular kind of fantasy, call it scientific believe or assumptions if you wish.



I am merely replying to the question (thread title), and offering up feeling's on same.
Have been an avid fisherman for nearly fifty year's and in my mind,,.Once you study the habit's of the fish you might be angling for they are fairly predictable, unlike human's.
I am a fish whisperer, and very much wish they could talk back,but ...


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## zozo (18 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> I am merely replying to the question (thread title), and offering up feeling's on same.
> Have been an avid fisherman for nearly fifty year's and in my mind,,.Once you study the habit's of the fish you might be angling for they are fairly predictable, unlike human's.
> I am a fish whisperer, and very much wish they could talk back,but ...



I'm merely asking out of curiousity, not trying to put a namesheild on your back or so. Just wondering what evidence a human has to underbuild his or her believe to think that animals, in this case fish do have no human qualities, whatever human qualities are. I realy do not know if they have and imho we can't yet know. Like there so many other things we just put in a box under a name and know very little about.

It even happens in out own sp. there are severe autistic people that were assumed to be completely letharchic not able to use their hands and feet properly. But when given the proper tools turned out to be brilliant savants contradicting all we think to know and leave highly decorated scholars baffled behind.

And i know about animals certain predicability, but that is not so much unlike humans.. Humans are as pridictable, if we weren't than commercials, politics and propaganda etc. woudn't work, but it does. 

There is nothing wrong with beeing wrong, that is what's develpment is all about.. Science developed because they are wrong all the time. So it's a common good to assume a half truth for right to finaly, hopefully, get to the full truth. So it also is predictable that a person not actively involved in the scientific research and only scratching the surface with reading textbooks and science magazines to believe this half truth most be right, but it isn't.

In our language we have a old wise proverd saying: "The farmer doesn't eat what he doesn't know." 
It reflects perfectly the human quality, to think lesser of things you do not know.



roadmaster said:


> I am a fish whisperer, and very much wish they could talk back,but ...


Maybe we can't see, because we are looking at it with a wrong believe..


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## roadmaster (18 Apr 2017)

Closest I have seen to what you may wish for is from an old movie.. "The incredible Mr. limpet"
About as close as you are likely to see in the real world.IMHO


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## zozo (18 Apr 2017)

I get what you mean tho never seen the movie.. But it's not what i wish for, for an animal to be as smart and nobel as humans think they are. And i honnestly do not know what goes on in their tiny brains even if science says "nothing much". I stay nutral at this point but have my doubts or an open mind if you like to see it like that. Sience still works partialy in a kinda nominalistic viewpoint. If it can't be seen nor measured it can't be given a name and thus likely wont exsist. I know thats beter than living a fantasy.. So i rather say, i do not know and probaly never will, life is to short for that. But to me it looks like their is much more going on between heaven and earth than we can imagine. So the TT is an interesting question, which one should think about without prejudice of what is not realy known.


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## Daveslaney (18 Apr 2017)

What about Nemo?.
On the bright side least you wouldnt have to go to work hehe. .


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## KipperSarnie (19 Apr 2017)

KipperSarnie said:


> Benefit of the doubt?
> Surely it is better to treat a moron as intelligent than it is to treat intelligence as a moron??



To Quote my Quote!


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## Smells Fishy (20 Apr 2017)

zozo said:


> Hahaha, i thought about this a lot, especialy in the later days of my anglers carier.. The time i didn't catch anything i used for thinking.. Often thought, what wtf am i actualy doing and what does this mean for the fish..
> 
> So i tempt it to eat a snack than it gets a hook pulled into it's lip and its dragged out fithing for its life taken forcefully out of it's natural element into an alien atmosphere where it is sufocating. It is touched, the hook pulled from its lip, draged around, weight, stroked while trying to escape flapping like mad, scared for it's life. Sees light flashes all over from taking pics. Than it is throwen back into it's element. Completely stressed out, exhausted, dizzy and probably frustrated and feeling raped.
> 
> ...



Yeah I agree with you on fishing. I've never done it but I've had the opportunity and all ways turned it down. People are thinking why so judgemental then!? Well basically one day I was eating a tuna sandwich of some sort, sat in front of my fish tank. You know when you've chewed something so much its hard to swallow? Well I think that happened in that moment, it was minging, so I spat that sh1t out. After that bite it just wasn't the same and couldn't finish the sandwich. It didn't take long for me to stop eating seafood, fast forward and its been 3 years since that fateful day. It's annoying that my partner and son eat fish and sometimes it looks and smells so good but I've came so far i would feel like a div if I ate some. I suppose to me eating fish in are hobby is a bit like hypocrisy, take that statement however you want. Its not like people are eating the fish we keep in the hobby un less you live in the places they are found naturally. Fish like Anabas testudineus is eaten all over the Asia area, it's seen as a pest when really it would be a great aquarium pet, it's never seen in the hobby which is crap, i want one. Then Snakeskin Gourami and the Giant Gourami are used as food, didn't expect it tho. Probably a hundred more examples. Sometimes when I'm walking back from the beach I see people doing sea fishing and the last time I walked back I walked past some guy just looking at a fish he had just caught, it was on his fishing box in the process of dying. It pissed me off because the guy seemed fairly happy to watch this fish suffer and didn't rush to end its life, i didn't wait around to see if he did, but by the time I reached him it had been out of the water at least a minute. I felt like saying "Oi! Are you going to kill it yet or just stand around and play with it". Not my thing at all.


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## zozo (20 Apr 2017)

Smells Fishy said:


> Yeah I agree with you on fishing. I've never done it but I've had the opportunity and all ways turned it down. People are thinking why so judgemental then!? Well basically one day I was eating a tuna sandwich of some sort, sat in front of my fish tank. You know when you've chewed something so much its hard to swallow? Well I think that happened in that moment, it was minging, so I spat that sh1t out. After that bite it just wasn't the same and couldn't finish the sandwich. It didn't take long for me to stop eating seafood, fast forward and its been 3 years since that fateful day. It's annoying that my partner and son eat fish and sometimes it looks and smells so good but I've came so far i would feel like a div if I ate some. I suppose to me eating fish in are hobby is a bit like hypocrisy, take that statement however you want. Its not like people are eating the fish we keep in the hobby un less you live in the places they are found naturally. Fish like Anabas testudineus is eaten all over the Asia area, it's seen as a pest when really it would be a great aquarium pet, it's never seen in the hobby which is crap, i want one. Then Snakeskin Gourami and the Giant Gourami are used as food, didn't expect it tho. Probably a hundred more examples. Sometimes when I'm walking back from the beach I see people doing sea fishing and the last time I walked back I walked past some guy just looking at a fish he had just caught, it was on his fishing box in the process of dying. It pissed me off because the guy seemed fairly happy to watch this fish suffer and didn't rush to end its life, i didn't wait around to see if he did, but by the time I reached him it had been out of the water at least a minute. I felt like saying "Oi! Are you going to kill it yet or just stand around and play with it". Not my thing at all.



I do not take it that far, i eat it and don't mind to hunt and eat what is catched. Killed and gutted my fair share of trout and threw them in the BBQ, nothing tatse better. Also slaughtered my home raised chickens. Honnestly i'm rather open minded, if i would ever visit a country with dog on the menu i would be the first to order. Hence in Thailand they do not eat cow, cows are for working not for eating. But fried insects are a daily snack..

But hunting an animal and catch for sport and release it again.. Aint a sport, thats cruel ammusement.. And indeed hypocryt, then be a man and go all the way, kill it and eat it.. But not tell yourself you release it again out of love and respect.. That's bull. Skinning an aminal make a coat for survival is a nessecity for some cultures, but doing it to make a statement and profile yourself in society is just cruel and beyond any respect or compassion.

Beeing honnest and love goes a long way.. What ever you do, do not lie to yourself is my best advice to people.. If you keep a bird in a cage than ask yourself what do you realy love.. The bird or yourself not feeling lonely or just having it, cuddling it and keeping it in a cage.. A lot of poeple may ask, do i love the dog or just the statement it makes on my cauch, like the car in front of the door.


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## Smells Fishy (21 Apr 2017)

PARAGUAY said:


> This is a small extract I read from a lady talking about her Sailfin plec  "recently learned to swim to the water surface and flips over belly up eats flake with the Goldfish with his mouth facing up and then returns to his usual swimming pattern". Learned this watching the Goldfish of course.Intelligent ?Got to be





PARAGUAY said:


> This is a small extract I read from a lady talking about her Sailfin plec  "recently learned to swim to the water surface and flips over belly up eats flake with the Goldfish with his mouth facing up and then returns to his usual swimming pattern". Learned this watching the Goldfish of course.Intelligent ?Got to be



Years ago when I was first starting out, i had a Sailfin plec funnily enough that did pretty much the same. I would see it swimming upside down along the waters surface sort of doing laps, it was so cool to watch. Plecs have to be one of the more smarter fish out there, no doubt about it. I suppose it was a way to entertain its self.


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## mort (21 Apr 2017)

I have many fish that are 20 years plus or getting on for 20 now. In truth most of these I no longer really want as I'd love to shut the tank down but in a weird way I don't trust anyone enough to pass them onto or want to cause the stress to them of moving. They were originally inherited from my father's tank which I took over when I was seven and so I've had them most of my live. I don't feel guilty about keeping them and believe they are far older than they would be in the average hobbyists tank. 
As I've grown I've always had a fascination with nature and therefore pass this onto whatever I plan to keep. So my clown loaches live in a good sized group, I have a group of silver dollars, my synodontis and other catfish have plenty of hiding spots to suit them and not me etc. So I go by the phylosophy of environment enrichment for stimulation. This is anthropomorphism but I'd rather treat something with more respect than mistreating it.


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## KipperSarnie (21 Apr 2017)

mort said:


> I have many fish that are 20 years plus or getting on for 20 now. In truth most of these I no longer really want as I'd love to shut the tank down but in a weird way I don't trust anyone enough to pass them onto or want to cause the stress to them of moving. They were originally inherited from my father's tank which I took over when I was seven and so I've had them most of my live. I don't feel guilty about keeping them and believe they are far older than they would be in the average hobbyists tank.
> As I've grown I've always had a fascination with nature and therefore pass this onto whatever I plan to keep. So my clown loaches live in a good sized group, I have a group of silver dollars, my synodontis and other catfish have plenty of hiding spots to suit them and not me etc. So I go by the phylosophy of environment enrichment for stimulation. This is anthropomorphism but I'd rather treat something with more respect than mistreating it.


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## sciencefiction (22 Apr 2017)

zozo said:


> Probably would come up with the idea to slap a lot of us in the face hoping for them to wake up one day.


That reminds me of one of my clown loaches. Once they see my head staring they normally start literally looking at me begging for food, not just swimming but turning their faces towards mine. This time I wasn't feeding them....I was just looking.... At some stage one of the bigger loaches just stood there staring at me straight in the face. Then he rapidly started swimming towards the surface( my head over it) and splashed me in the face....



roadmaster said:


> Have caught same crappie and or Bass more than once in a single day of fishing.(one eyed,or part of fin missing).



I have to doubt that, specifically based on experience with fish in a fish tank. Catch a fish the wrong way...for example stuck in the net for a few more seconds, or chased prior to that for a longer than accepted time, that fish won't approach you for weeks and months on hand afterwards. They loose their trust.  Somehow they remember the stress and associate you with it for a long long time.....but they get over it eventually. My point is, their memory isn't that short at all.


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## zozo (22 Apr 2017)

One experience one day left me completely baffled.. I was fishing for Carp at the local lake which has very clear water, easily see over a meter deep.. No action for hours and a few fellows walked by and stopped for a chat.. We were chatting and joking and using arm and hand gestures as we aal do during speach. Not realy paying attention to the water, my rods had a beeper anyway. But after an hour chatting or so i looked at my rods and saw a 60cm mirrorcarp laying in the shallow 20cm from the side, just laying there with its head turned our way. I said nothing and i curiously watched it for 15 minutes from the corner of my eye.

I realy thought WTF is this animal doing, the moment i notified the other 2 and pointed at it a minute later it gently swam away.

Didn't have a beep and no action at all, all day long.. I'm not looking for something behind it, likely pure chance.. But sometimes you can't help thinking strange thoughts.. Was it observing us? No sign of life for a day and then it just sits there staring me in the face for who knows how long.  And than swims away when its aware it is noticed..


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## PARAGUAY (23 Apr 2017)

Must have been some conversation


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## zozo (23 Apr 2017)

Usualy if a carp comes close to the surface and the side, which they oftenly do. You need to be very silent and very still.. And i know, because the majority of my angler days i was a floating bait fisher, hunting and sneaking to the lake sides and hiding in the reets at warm sunny days. Make one sudden move and it shoots away.

This animal didn't do that.. And we were talking pretty loud and lauching and waving arms and legs and having fun.. But when it was obviously noticed it slowly took off.. So it obviously kinda knew what it was doing and that it wasn't yet noticed, did it at own choice and not feeling threatened by our sounds and movements with only 2 or 3 meters apart.

No actualy we didn't talk about it. And this is actualy the first time i feel like telling this experience in 25 years..


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## Smells Fishy (23 Apr 2017)

Maybe you caught that carp before and it was giving you the evil eye.


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## roadmaster (24 Apr 2017)

sciencefiction said:


> That reminds me of one of my clown loaches. Once they see my head staring they normally start literally looking at me begging for food, not just swimming but turning their faces towards mine. This time I wasn't feeding them....I was just looking.... At some stage one of the bigger loaches just stood there staring at me straight in the face. Then he rapidly started swimming towards the surface( my head over it) and splashed me in the face....
> 
> 
> 
> I have to doubt that, specifically based on experience with fish in a fish tank. Catch a fish the wrong way...for example stuck in the net for a few more seconds, or chased prior to that for a longer than accepted time, that fish won't approach you for weeks and months on hand afterwards. They loose their trust.  Somehow they remember the stress and associate you with it for a long long time.....but they get over it eventually. My point is, their memory isn't that short at all.



I'm not in the habit of lying about fighting,fishing,or fornicating.
Shortcoming's are quickly realized.
Clearly, you have fished for neither Crappie or largemouth bass in pre spawn or spawning.
As mentioned previously,one you begin to study the habit's of the fishes you might be angling for,they are fairly predictable.
Best time to fish for the afore mentioned species is during the spawn, when they will attack anything that ventures close to the nesting area's they have selected.(Catfish too)
Can easily turn a caught fish loose, and she will return to  the nest and attack the lure/bait over and over.(with catfish, it is the male that guards the nest)
I shall not attempt to compare what might happen in glass box of water compared to nature but  try to set up my tanks with nature in mind.
I can however,, catch same fishes repeatedly from my tanks for sale or trade with simple bottle trap over the weekend when I take them to the store for sale or credit.
They just ain't that smart.


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## sciencefiction (24 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> I'm not in the habit of lying about fighting,fishing,or fornicating.
> Shortcoming's are quickly realized.
> Clearly, you have fished for neither Crappie or largemouth bass in pre spawn or spawning.
> As mentioned previously,one you begin to study the habit's of the fishes you might be angling for,they are fairly predictable.
> ...



So you call a fish stupid for being vulnerable when protecting their young? I wonder what a human being in a similar scenario might do? And how do you call a person that goes fishing in the breeding season? 

Stupid is a human trait but if I am to transcend the meaning of it to animals, all the animals in the world can't reach the level of stupidity one human can. 



roadmaster said:


> I can however,, catch same fishes repeatedly from my tanks for sale or trade with simple bottle trap over the weekend when I take them to the store for sale or credit.



That sentence is difficult for me to understand. You catch a fish "repeatedly" to sell it? Let me rephrase. So you catch the fish with a trap, then sell it. Then you buy it back, put the same fish you your tank, catch it again with the same trap and then sell the same fish again, and so on...

A fish that has only seen good deeds from you so far, i.e. no abuse,  good food and good water, won't necessarily expect you to put a trap in its tank...Only humans can be that mean to something they previously lived in harmony with.


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## zozo (24 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> They just ain't that smart.


I'm not so sure about that, i rather believe it is an individual thing.. And that we should look more relatively to it's need and abilities to the degree of smartness they maybe could develop. As there are also people which not so smart. A test with food on what all live depends is a rather unfair test. I know fish are caught severla times with the same bait, i did.. Once caught a 90cm grasscarp twice in the same week with a floating piece of bread.

But that doesn't telll me they are not so smart.. All have to eat, eating is for all that lives an instinctive bahaivor.. If a very smart person is hungry enough it could be easily be outsmarted and lured in with a nice shiny apple into a trap. That doesn't make this person stuppid, instincts can overrule intelligents as easy as it can trigger it to devellop.

Not beeing so smart also aint an evidence that it can't have emotions. We can measure brainwaves, neurological pathways, we know about synapses and neurons and the hormones triggering them. We know about certain hormones which can trigger basic feelings..What we yet can not measure is what this basic feeling does and how it manifests into a subjects mind. But even than, if the subject is hungry enough it will be rather predictable.. The smartest person on the world will be. If you would camouflage the bait in such away that it's intelligents can't recognize it it will fall for the trap.

Example you are very very hungry, so hungry it hurts and makes you desperate in need of food. The feeling over rules all your senses. I send you into a field with apples laying around and a few unrecognizable poisoned. If you eat a poisoned one you get rather the cramps and sick for an our. Then i send you in everyday, watching you. And you are starving and have to eat. Now you can't deside which apple gives you the cramps, so the changes that you eat one every day is 90%. I play like that with your abilities to recognize the trap, you only see delicious apples.. If you do eat a posoined apple 4 days in a row.. Does that make you not so smart.?  Would you starve yourself to dead, because you know some of the food in front of you is not safe to eat? I guess not..

Another example of instincs over ruling intelligents so it can even be used as a weapon. venereal disease..


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## zozo (24 Apr 2017)

What is realy remarkable and quite a bit funny too.. 

Giving animals emotinal properties and thoughts is merely a fantasy put in realm of myth and fairytales.

Depriving them from it, because certain logical tests make it plausible to believe they might have not is rather considered a fact.

But both are equaly close to a fantasy as long as we do not know for sure and only believe..


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## roadmaster (24 Apr 2017)

sciencefiction said:


> So you call a fish stupid for being vulnerable when protecting their young? I wonder what a human being in a similar scenario might do? And how do you call a person that goes fishing in the breeding season?
> 
> Stupid is a human trait but if I am to transcend the meaning of it to animals, all the animals in the world can't reach the level of stupidity one human can.
> 
> ...



I sometimes get paid for putting people on fish to catch for sport.(sport fishing)
You don't get paid for long, if you don't know where and when to go fishing so that the people can catch fish.
I also catch fishes to eat, and do not feel any remorse for doing so.
Yes I catch same fishes repeatedly with trap in tanks .(all species)
I may catch species with the trap that I am not going to sell, and they go back in the tank.
It may take me two evening's to catch all the fishes I am going to trade that weekend, and I easily catch the same unwanted species for sale/trade the next night or day.
What do I call a person or angler that goes fishing when/where success is most likely?  (Wise old fisherman).
P.S. there are length limit's,possession limit's for fishes taken by pole and line as per Conservation department rules and regulation's.
They determine limit's so as not to have negative affect on future population's.


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## Smells Fishy (24 Apr 2017)

zozo said:


> What is realy remarkable and quite a bit funny too..
> 
> Giving animals emotinal properties and thoughts is merely a fantasy put in realm of myth and fairytales.
> 
> ...



This thread has sort of turned into trying to decide whether fish are smart or not, and I'm totally fine with that, it's good reading. I just want to make this point because I should have said something similar in another thread I made regarding feeder shrimp but i didn't for some reason and the thread died. So basicly an analogy should sum it up. There is VERY few things in life that we actually know and can't change. For example the sun, nobody is ever going to disagree that it is in the sky or its round and bright. There is no opinion when it comes to the sun but in contrast physics, psychology, nutrition, whatever really, there is just so much theory to it, there will all ways be someone who thinks they know better, coming up with new ideas that somehow get turned into facts. For me seeing is believing. There's so much sh1t in the world like anti depressants, how did they stumble across its bad mood killing properties? Did they actually see the depression disappear from peoples minds first hand somehow? What about ginger root, one day someone decided to eat it or brew it up and felt that it helped there stiffness, spread the word and people took note and they felt it helps them in some other way. Whooooo. If only science could make us into some kind of fly on the wall for any thing we wanted clarfied so we could actually believe it 100%. Imagine being inside your body while all these magical things are happening to you, being able to see cod liver oil do its claimed benefits, or what about pain I wonder what that would look like, a bonfire of nerves, little fires? Anyway its all just dark inside your body unless all the rays leak through you and that's how your white blood cells can locate all the free radicals and oust them.....steady, hold on big chief your getting carried away.


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## roadmaster (25 Apr 2017)

Yes,is easy to wax philosophical.
If I were a fish,I would be quite happy to live in my aquarium's I think.
I would not be so happy to be a fish in the bait tank's,or store tank's where I might be purchased for bait,or by the masses of fish collector's in the hobby as opposed to those who care for fishes.


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## sciencefiction (25 Apr 2017)

Not all people understand animals well and automatically ignore the signs. A few years back I brought my cat to the vet with the complaint theres something wrong with him because he started biting me and he had never done that before. The Vet simply laughed at me and said that cats are mean. 6 months later my cat was diagnosed with cancer and died days from being diagnosed...

There are plenty of life examples of fish helping each other and humans in need. Just because most aquarium fish have small brains does not automatically imply stupidity. The same was thought for birds but we now know that is not true

And even dogs were thought to be lacking qualities such as emotions,sense of fairness, etc..., and that has been disproven too in plenty of studies. They can be sad, depressed, happy, etc. 

Its easier to kill an animal if you think its existence is only there to please humans one way or another. The more you kill, the less you feel and there's no one to judge...especially when it comes to fish.


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## roadmaster (27 Apr 2017)

Killed untold number's of fishes when I began in the hobby some four decades ago .
Largely out of ignorance.
Now I can say happily,,that the majority of the fishes I care for die of old age.
Except the bait fish.
I see many examples of planted tank's where fishes are but for aesthetic values.
Pretty sure,, the majority of the fishes we might keep do not much care for uber lighting,near toxic levels' of CO2,and or sharp increase's in TDS from the mineral salt's we use as fertilzer's daily/weekly.


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## mort (27 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> I see many examples of planted tank's where fishes are but for aesthetic values.
> Pretty sure,, the majority of the fishes we might keep do not much care for uber lighting,near toxic levels' of CO2,and or sharp increase's in TDS from the mineral salt's we use as fertilzer's daily/weekly.



This is something I have noticed as well. Fishes are thought of more as decoration than pets in some tanks, with constant rescapes, moving them out or selling them on, keeping in unnatural open scapes etc just to suit the owner not the fish.


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## zozo (27 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> Pretty sure,, the majority of the fishes we might keep do not much care for uber lighting,near toxic levels' of CO2,and or sharp increase's in TDS from the mineral salt's we use as fertilzer's daily/weekly.



This is just where i wonder, what makes you so pretty sure?

In this is case is what you see is what you get.. Fish have no hands, no facial expressions nor body gestures we recognize, no speach, non of the communicating qualities we posses. At least that's what we like to think. If we do otherwise, it's more likely considered fantasy than fact.. Only thing they can do is flap their fins, swim around and filter oxygen from the water with their gils, look and sense around for something to eat and or play with their mates.

Ofcourse they have an abbilty to addapt to not optimal living qualities, if they weren's we wouldn't have fish at all. They are addapted to survive, some even can survive very severe bad invironmental qualities, but that still doesn't say they feel well in it. They have no other choice than try to hold on to survive and wait for beter days. Numerous examples in nature to find that fish which propagated in severe poluted waters have anatomical deformities making survival even more dificult. We have discovered that long term high concentrations of certain chemical elements cause anatomical deformities and probably severe discomfort in previous healty fish. If we didn't measure for it whit special tools non of it is to be seen, till you see a fish in bad shape. This doesn't happen over night, there propably as a long agenizing road of discomfort before the they even show it. And without measuring tools there is no way for for a fish to show us it isn't doing well.

But since we have no means to measure any of the emotions or sense of well beeing they might have developed, for us it is merely like watching a silent movie. And since we do not realy know we have the freedom to interpret the movie according to our own believe..

It is like watching a silent movie about the poverties in the third world countries. Where you see malnourished children still play and lauch.. Seeing that with no comment at all. Not knowing what you are looking at, but a dry and empty invironment with skiny lauching and playing children.. You also could say, "Hey look they are still playing and laughing, pretty sure they most not care for the condition they are in." 

And they as human can survive such conditions for a rather very long time before they finaly collaps from weakness. Final conclusion, so do we have abbilities to survive rather shitty conditions for a long time. But because it conserns humans we all can reflect to that and know it aint fun if you have to. But if so than stil you need to laugh and be playfull now and then just to find little comfort.

To animals we cannot relate? Why not?

Now you believe they do not care much for it.. Which is a good right. I believe i can't know that. Rather, i think they might be more simmular to us then we might believe.. 

Emotions are something very natural, it is given to us by nature, so why not to them. It is proven that animals sense human emotoins. That by itslef is proof enough, if you can sense it you must know something about it. But other way around?

Ignorance is bliss?


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## roadmaster (27 Apr 2017)

Well As I said,I killed untold number's of fishes while learning about how to lessen stress, and provide for them per species.(research their need's)
Quality food's, stable water chemistry that suites individual species considered (many ignore this),clean/fresh water,suitable temp's/tankmates.
With these in mind,fishes we keep can easily outlive their cousin's in the wild.(no predation,foods are plentiful)
No, ignorance is not bliss, but often used as excuse in this hobby.
Only time me thinks ignorance would be bliss is ..Not knowing exactly when and under what circumstances one may leave this earth to meet their god.


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## sciencefiction (27 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> With these in mind,fishes we keep can easily outlive their cousin's in the wild.(no predation,foods are plentiful)



On a grander scale that's false. Take for example clown loaches. There are millions of them exported for the aquarium trade every year. How many of them to you think live longer than their cousin in the wild?...in reality very few of them survive the first year. If I were a fish, I'd take my chances in the wild if I had a choice....


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## roadmaster (28 Apr 2017)

No In my view, your just kickin  a dead horse or not reading.
With research,comes knowledge so that one does not have become a fish collector buying,replacing,medicating fishes as opposed to one who cares for the fishes in their charge.
Research ain't trolling forums searching for other's who are as desperate to fix largely self induced issues with fishes or I dare say plant's and their basic need's.


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> No In my view, your just kickin a dead horse or not reading.



I actually talked facts....Its strange that you call it  "kicking a dead horse" just because it doesn't suit your view. Your obviously haven't done your research and talk old tales not tied to reality that make one feel better about their fish misfortunes. It's nice to think that the fish I killed the other day had a better life than most of its wild counterparts...but is that true?  The fact is most fishkeepers or anyone that has anything to do with fish, happens to kill fish more often than not, even with the best intentions.


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## zozo (28 Apr 2017)

Long time ago as akid i red a story about Goldfish and where they come from.. That their history goes back for thousands of years reared as consumption fish in ancient China. The first found records about breeding ornamental variaties of these fish go back about 2000 years. Certain colors where prohibited to be bred by the common people and were exclusively bred for royal gardenponds. There is a legendary tale telling about an Chinese emporer who gave all his pet goldfish it's own name and each fish responded accordingly and came to him when he sat next to pond and called it's name.
I searched for it, but yet i couldn't find any digital version of this tale on the net, still it might be around somewhere..

I was very young back then and this beautiful story kinda intrigued me so much i never realy have forgoten it. Now it comes to mind it migh have contributed to my view that there is more to these animals than just gasping, eating and breeding and that they are way less numb as they appear to us. Dunno if there is any truth to the story, but why not, gold fish are known to do tricks if conditioned propperly. So when there is smoke there is fire. I guess only an emporer has the time to spend to sit next to a pond all day and train a few fish. I never even tried, feels kinda silly sitting next to a pond and calling names, even tho i have a special bond with my goldfish and almost daily spend some time with them.

And when you think of it and research some biology texts, you come to know that fish have a much higher sensory perception than we do. They have eyes, ears, nose, some have highly sensitive wiskers at their mouth, all have a swimblader sensing vertical pressure changes and a lateral line sensing horizontal pressure differences. So we can't say it is a fantasy that they sense their invironment with a more sophisticated sensibility than we could ever dream of. 

It doesn't fit the bill, thinking they don't do much with it..


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## roadmaster (28 Apr 2017)

sciencefiction said:


> I actually talked facts....Its strange that you call it  "kicking a dead horse" just because it doesn't suit your view. Your obviously haven't done your research and talk old tales not tied to reality that make one feel better about their fish misfortunes. It's nice to think that the fish I killed the other day had a better life than most of its wild counterparts...but is that true?  The fact is most fishkeepers or anyone that has anything to do with fish, happens to kill fish more often than not, even with the best intentions.



You say I speak of old tales, with no basis in reality.
With the exception of my opinion as to fishes intelligence(or lack thereof),I defy you or anyone else to point me to any untruth's I have submitted.
What I have submitted may not fit YOUR reality but that don't confront me, and that which I have submitted for other's to read is easily realized throughout the hobby and among studies.
No ,fish keeper's do NOT kill fishes more often than not as you have stated with any amount of forethought/research.
Those that maybe do ,are fish collector's I spoke of, or newbies with little to no experiences .
They buy fishes they like(no research) ,they perhaps die for a myriad of reason's  ,and they buy more repeating same mistakes and hoping for different outcomes.
Fish keeper's that have been at it for a while don't lose near the number's of fishes that the uninformed do. 
They begin to wonder not what medication's can I throw at the tank ,but rather how can I  increase my success with a particular species.
Good stock to start with ,suitable water chemistry,nutritious diet's,good tank husbandry,etc all which I mentioned a couple three times now.


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## Smells Fishy (28 Apr 2017)

sciencefiction said:


> On a grander scale that's false. Take for example clown loaches. There are millions of them exported for the aquarium trade every year. How many of them to you think live longer than their cousin in the wild?...in reality very few of them survive the first year. If I were a fish, I'd take my chances in the wild if I had a choice....



I agree with you on the clown loach side but on a whole I dont. Simply because in the wild a fish will be lucky to not have some sort of parasite, think of all the wild caught discus that need to be dewormed before sale etc. Most fish unless they are some sort of big predator, will be afraid for there life most of the time. In the Amazon when the dry season comes its any small fishes worst nightmare with them being cut of from the larger body's of water they are trapped in small ponds just hoping not to be eaten that day. I imagine they can't even sleep well at night with all the night time predators. Are fish kept in tanks don't have any of these fears of they shouldn't if kept properly.


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## Smells Fishy (28 Apr 2017)

sciencefiction said:


> On a grander scale that's false. Take for example clown loaches. There are millions of them exported for the aquarium trade every year. How many of them to you think live longer than their cousin in the wild?...in reality very few of them survive the first year. If I were a fish, I'd take my chances in the wild if I had a choice....



I agree with you on the clown loach side but on a whole I dont. Simply because in the wild a fish will be lucky to not have some sort of parasite, think of all the wild caught discus that need to be dewormed before sale etc. Most fish unless they are some sort of big predator, will be afraid for there life most of the time. In the Amazon when the dry season comes its any small fishes worst nightmare with them being cut of from the larger body's of water they are trapped in small ponds just hoping not to be eaten that day. I imagine they can't even sleep well at night with all the night time predators. Are fish kept in tanks don't have any of these fears of they shouldn't if kept properly.


zozo said:


> Long time ago as akid i red a story about Goldfish and where they come from.. That their history goes back for thousands of years reared as consumption fish in ancient China. The first found records about breeding ornamental variaties of these fish go back about 2000 years. Certain colors where prohibited to be bred by the common people and were exclusively bred for royal gardenponds. There is a legendary tale telling about an Chinese emporer who gave all his pet goldfish it's own name and each fish responded accordingly and came to him when he sat next to pond and called it's name.
> I searched for it, but yet i couldn't find any digital version of this tale on the net, still it might be around somewhere..
> 
> I was very young back then and this beautiful story kinda intrigued me so much i never realy have forgoten it. Now it comes to mind it migh have contributed to my view that there is more to these animals than just gasping, eating and breeding and that they are way less numb as they appear to us. Dunno if there is any truth to the story, but why not, gold fish are known to do tricks if conditioned propperly. So when there is smoke there is fire. I guess only an emporer has the time to spend to sit next to a pond all day and train a few fish. I never even tried, feels kinda silly sitting next to a pond and calling names, even tho i have a special bond with my goldfish and almost daily spend some time with them.
> ...



Yeah your right some fish really can be clicked on. Check out R2 fish school training kit on YouTube, the goldfish has developed some crazy skills. I would send a link but last time I tried it it didn't work and I didn't understand what you meant regarding cookies.


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## zozo (28 Apr 2017)

Smells Fishy said:


> Yeah your right some fish really can be clicked on. Check out R2 fish school training kit on YouTube, the goldfish has developed some crazy skills. I would send a link but last time I tried it it didn't work and I didn't understand what you meant regarding cookies.



I know the vid seen it. Thanks.  Never mind the cookies.. But if you see a vid on youtube, bellow it is a share link marked with an Arrow to the right. Click on it and the short share url shows.. Copy/paste this one and your good to go..


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## mort (28 Apr 2017)

Smells Fishy said:


> I agree with you on the clown loach side but on a whole I dont. Simply because in the wild a fish will be lucky to not have some sort of parasite, think of all the wild caught discus that need to be dewormed before sale etc. Most fish unless they are some sort of big predator, will be afraid for there life most of the time. In the Amazon when the dry season comes its any small fishes worst nightmare with them being cut of from the larger body's of water they are trapped in small ponds just hoping not to be eaten that day. I imagine they can't even sleep well at night with all the night time predators. Are fish kept in tanks don't have any of these fears of they shouldn't if kept properly.



Parasites aren't such a major problem in the wild. Consider whitespot, it becomes more of an issue in the confines of a tank as the fish can't get away from it whereas wild parasites have a harder time finding a host and water quality is less of an issue (for the most part), therefore infections are likely to be lesser.
Another point is thinking of fish in the same way as us in terms of awareness and behaviour, they have evolved to be predator aware so won't show any difference in a aquarium as opposed to in a tank unless they truly do have the intelligence to determine there is no predatory threat, which I'm unsure of. More domesticated species like guppies, mollies or those of many generations of tank breeding may react differently but then I find it hard to believe the intelligence of these species is einsteinian to begin with.

I know in marine fish there have been studies of fish and cortisol levels, the stress hormone, and they found that parrotfish were less prolific breeders and died younger when understress on reefs but would the same fish when trapped in an unnatural aquaria settled own and live a longer "happier" life, again I'm not sure.


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## mort (28 Apr 2017)

I also see there is a little to and throwing going on in this post but I've also shared roadmasters experience of catching the same fish more than once on the same day. This was with some tagged fish so there was no doubt they were the same individual. Again these were hungry seafish but I can't remember which species as I was very young and had been told off for throwing all the fisherman's, that we were with, octopus that he'd caught back into the see when they weren't looking.


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## zozo (28 Apr 2017)

I guess in nature it is eat or be eaten.. If a fish looses his mojo and not watching it's back enough because destracted by malaise it'll be eaten before it's around the next corner..  It least the small ones we generaly keep..


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2017)

Smells Fishy said:


> agree with you on the clown loach side but on a whole I dont. Simply because in the wild a fish will be lucky to not have some sort of parasite, think of all the wild caught discus that need to be dewormed before sale etc.



More on the parasites. Parasites do not kill the host and in nature fish may live infested with worms and parasites their whole life. Its the stress of capture, aquarium life, small quarters, unsuitable tank mates, water quality, etc...that triggers those parasites/worms to take over as the fish's immune system can't deal with it anymore. Hence they only become an issue in aquariums and not really an issue in the wild..Plus in the wild its not so easy for them to get infected with new diseases their immune system is not used to deal with. A happy fish is a healthy fish as their immune system does the "medicatiing". That's true for majority of fish diseases with some exceptions.


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## sciencefiction (28 Apr 2017)

roadmaster said:


> You say I speak of old tales, with no basis in reality.
> With the exception of my opinion as to fishes intelligence(or lack thereof),I defy you or anyone else to point me to any untruth's I have submitted.
> What I have submitted may not fit YOUR reality but that don't confront me, and that which I have submitted for other's to read is easily realized throughout the hobby and among studies.
> No ,fish keeper's do NOT kill fishes more often than not as you have stated with any amount of forethought/research.
> ...



I get what you're saying and I partially agree but every fishkeeper without exception has been a beginner. Multiply those millions by the number of fish they've killed...We're happy fish in nature breed like rabbits for the most part but this has not been the case for a long time, not for all species. The Europeans prior to reaching the America's had overfished the European continent and did their best to do the same savage fishing when they became "Americans".
This is not just about fish, but many other animals have been predated upon for a lot different reasons than feeding oneself. A lot of fish go to waste, so do other animals that get killed. Its still an ongoing problem that has no end until there's nothing to catch. 

I originally come from a small European country, with little regulations when it comes to fishing, and bribery was a common thing to not be fined if you were fishing during breeding season.  There's no fish in those rivers for all the years I lived there.  When I was younger we could sit for 3 days and catch nothing at all. You could only enjoy catching fish in private lakes where they replaced the fish each year...., paying a fee for the service..


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## sciencefiction (29 Apr 2017)

Some reading for those that think fish are dumb, The full text is in the link below.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170426-why-fish-do-not-deserve-their-reputation-for-forgetfulness

_There is something fishy about our attitude to fish.

This widely-held belief may persist due to an unconscious bias, based on an old-fashioned view of how evolution works. Culum Brown of Macquarie University in Australia, who is also assistant editor of the Journal of Fish Biology, suspects that many people underestimate how smart fish are because they assume fish are primitive creatures. 

It is also possible we subconsciously underestimate the cognitive abilities of fish because they live in such a different habitat to our own; because we have been duped by films that perpetuate the myth that fish are amnesiacs; or because we simply assume they are unintelligent to avoid feeling guilty when tucking into a fish finger sandwich.

"The reality is that most of the fish on the planet today evolved around the same time as humans," he says.
"Most aspects [of] their cognitive abilities are just as good as most terrestrial animals, and in many cases exceed them," says Brown.

The humble goldfish can remember things for three months, and can even tell the time in a rudimentary way. For a 1994 study, researchers trained goldfish to push a lever that worked for one hour a day in exchange for a reward. The fish learned to take advantage of this window of opportunity, demonstrating that they could keep track of time, learn and remember.Brown says many fish can recall details for a very long time. For instance, the crimson-spotted rainbowfish (Melanotaenia duboulayi) can remember escape routes to evade danger for 11 months, according to a study he published in 2001._

_Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) can solve a maze consisting of six consecutive T-junctions. The popular pets not only learned to complete the puzzle, but over a five-day training period they got faster and made fewer errors, according to a study published in February 2017.

The fish's performance was surprising and could be compared to that of rats, says lead author Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato of the University in Padova in Italy. 
 "Rodents are expected to be successful in similar tasks because they have evolved to live in burrow systems similar to that of a maze. But conversely, fish usually live in very different environments and therefore were not expected to rapidly learn the maze."

He says guppies may have evolved their navigational abilities because, in the wild, they live in streams that are strewn with obstacles.

Fish, like mammals, have an excellent sense of space. They draw on incoming sensory information such as hydrostatic pressure to work out their position in three-dimensional space, according to a 2016 study.

Theresa Burt de Perera of the University of Oxford says that fish can encode space in 3D, whereas land-dwelling animals like us have trouble with the vertical dimension. Unlike rats, fish can accurately judge vertical distance. Brown says fish's ability to track depth makes them "superior to humans" in this respect.

There is also tentative evidence that fish have something similar to "place cells". These cells, which have been found in rats, are neurons that fire when the animal occupies a specific location within its environment. Different place cells fire in different locations, so they are thought to be the seat of a neural map of space in mammals.

The apparent fish "place cells" are in an area of their brain that is equivalent to the human hippocampus. The fish might use them to create a memory of the space around them.

As well as navigating, fish can use tools – a skill once thought to belong exclusively to humans.

Several of the brightly-coloured marine fish called wrasses crush sea urchins against rocks to access the meat inside. Meanwhile, South American cichlids and hoplo catfish (Hoplosternum thoracatum) glue their eggs to leaves and small rocks, which they use as portable nurseries if their nests are under threat, according to a 2012 review paper by Brown.
_
Perhaps the most impressive tool-using fish is the archerfish (_Toxotes chatareus_), which uses water as a tool or weapon, much as we might throw a ball. The fish squirts a jet from its mouth like a water pistol to hit insects above the water's surface. It even takes light refraction into account.
_
Stefan Schuster of the University of Bayreuth in Germany is a leading authority on archerfish. He has demonstrated that juvenile archerfish appear to learn the complex hunting method by watching more experienced hunters – even though they do not have a brain region called the neocortex, which is associated with sight in mammals.

After taking a shot and hitting its target, the archerfish calculates where its dinner will land and sets off at top speed to grab it ahead of its rivals. It can do this in as little as 40 milliseconds. "These decisions are most remarkable in their combination of speed and complexity," says Schuster.

In a sense, the archerfish is performing ballistics calculations. But of course, it is "doing the maths" at an intuitive level, much like a good footballer can quickly make a perfect pass and anticipate where another player will receive it, without working out trajectories.

Archerfish can also discriminate between human faces, a task previously only accomplished by primates.

They can pick out a familiar face from a sea of 44 new faces, according to a 2016 study. Researchers trained the fish to identify a familiar face by shooting it with a jet of water, and discovered that they could make the distinction up to 89% of the time.

"The fact that archerfish can learn this task suggests that complicated brains are not necessarily needed to recognise human faces," says author Cait Newport of the University of Oxford.

Gee says there is a chance pet goldfish may be able to recognise their owners' faces, although there is no evidence so far – and wild goldfish live in murky waters, which may mean they do not rely on vision as much as archerfish.

However, much like birds, fish can distinguish between quantities.

In a 2013 study, researchers found that newborn guppies can choose the larger of two groups of dots. "The fact that newborn fish can learn to distinguish between two groups of objects differing in number reinforces the idea that numerical abilities might be at least partially displayed at birth," says author Christian Agrillo of the University of Padova.

Judging quantities is important for fish, because they often avoid predators by joining large shoals. Several studies have shown that fish prefer to join the larger of two shoals when placed in an unknown environment.

Agrillo believes fish are as adept at quantifying small groups as mammals and birds. If that is true, it would suggest that our numerical abilities may be older than we thought. They could even date back to the divergence between fish and land vertebrates, approximately 450 million years ago.

As well as "counting", fish can work together – even with members of other species.

Coralgroupers (Plectropomus pessuliferus) and coral trout (Plectropomus leopardus) both sometimes team up with snake-like giant moray eels (Gymnothorax javanicus) to flush out prey that are hiding in small crevices.

The trout and grouper both shake their heads to invite a moray to come hunting.

In a 2014 study, biologists showed that coral trout quickly learn to choose the most effective eel hunters. They used a set-up in which food was out of reach. The trout quickly worked out when they needed a collaborator to help them get the food, and they were three times more likely to choose an effective moray teammate over an ineffective one.

The experiment "strengthens the case that a relatively small brain, compared to warm-blooded species, does not stop at least some fish species from possessing cognitive abilities that compare to or even surpass those of apes," says study author Alexander Vail of the University of Cambridge.

A goldfish aimlessly circling its bowl may not be as smart as this. But archerfish and other species are helping to challenge our perceptions of fish intelligence. Schuster says this should put our own cognitive abilities into context, because clearly impressive brainpower evolved long before humans.

However, it remains to be seen whether our newfound appreciation of fish intelligence will ever be enough to put us all off eating fish and chips.
_


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## zozo (15 Nov 2018)

They are far more intelligent than we realize. 
Sébastien Moro wrote a comic book to debunk the clichés about fish's cognitive skills.


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## DutchMuch (15 Nov 2018)

Ok as per the title;
i would be scared for my life 24/7 cause 99% of the time i would end up in a tiny 1/2 gallon bowl with pink gravel no filter and no heater.
Then die 2 days if that later.
Amen.


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## goldscapes (15 Nov 2018)

sciencefiction said:


> _Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) can solve a maze consisting of six consecutive T-junctions. The popular pets not only learned to complete the puzzle, but over a five-day training period they got faster and made fewer errors, according to a study published in February 2017.
> 
> The fish's performance was surprising and could be compared to that of rats, says lead author Tyrone Lucon-Xiccato of the University in Padova in Italy.
> "Rodents are expected to be successful in similar tasks because they have evolved to live in burrow systems similar to that of a maze. But conversely, fish usually live in very different environments and therefore were not expected to rapidly learn the maze."
> ...



Ok, so who’s going to be the first member to scape a maze?


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## goldscapes (16 Nov 2018)

Seriously though, anyone interested in this should read up on Cephalopods, they are probably the most advanced alternative (to human/mammalian) intelligence on the planet - but please don’t try putting them in a aquarium!


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## mort (16 Nov 2018)

davexcape said:


> Seriously though, anyone interested in this should read up on Cephalopods, they are probably the most advanced alternative (to human/mammalian) intelligence on the planet - but please don’t try putting them in a aquarium!



I've raised Sepia bandensis from eggs and had them spawn a new generation before the horrible natural process of senescence. I'd never attempt to keep any of the bigger cuttlefish or octopus but believe these little cuttles had a very good and enriching life. 
I only had them to begin with because the eggs were a box filler in an import I had. They were probably the most rewarding and heartbreaking thing I've ever looked after.


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