Wayne Sallee wrote:

Not true.
Fish know when they are dying.

I visited a friend with a similar issue with a fish but he liked the
aggressive reaction of the fish. Well, I visited him two years later
and the same fish was doing the same funny reaction after an
illumination trigger.
But don't worry, as soon as they acknowledge its new "neighbors" as
harmless, they will go around and invest their energy in other
things. Yes they will comeback again but will not stay there for
long. In the other hand, if they associate the other fish with the
pain they felt after the hit, lol, you better change backgrounds.
iy


Fish are a lot smarter than people give them credit for.


I agree with everything WS says. Unfortunately there seems
to be no profit to be made from subsidizing research on fish
intelligence, so there is minimum evidence of their learning
ability, aside from anecdotes. But there are plenty of
those. My fish know me, of course, especially the Cichlids
who hide from everyone else. Pond fish, sal****er, turtles,
everyone knows I'm food. They also know, I swear, who the
net is after and only that fish becomes truly evasive.
Anyone who says the fish don't know when they're dying has
never looked in their eyes and felt painfully called upon
and helpless. Granted I do some reading into what I see,
but my empathy is based on clear observation.

rtk