How smart are fish ?

I have a problem... in my huge wisom I have covered a side wall
of the fishtank with a mirror-foil. Just to cover the unpleasant view
behind of the tank... and to get some more light reflected back.
Today I let the fish in this new tank...

A pair of maroon clowns and hepatus tang get crazy seeing their
own reflection in the tank wall.

Now my title question: will they realize this is just a mirror
soon or they will continue to fight the other fish in the mirror?
How smart are they ?

It is difficult to take the foil off since it is in a tight space
between the tank and room wall... First day I turned off the lights
sooner and wonder what will the group advice be...
Should I go trought the trouble of removing the foil or the fish
will get used to this reflection soon ? If so, how soon will it be ?

They will slowly reduce their aggressiveness against their
reflection, but will always have a suspicion that it might
be another fish on the other side.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Pszemol wrote on 7/22/2006 10:12 PM:
I have a problem... in my huge wisom I have covered a side wall
of the fishtank with a mirror-foil. Just to cover the unpleasant view
behind of the tank... and to get some more light reflected back.
Today I let the fish in this new tank...

A pair of maroon clowns and hepatus tang get crazy seeing their
own reflection in the tank wall.

Now my title question: will they realize this is just a mirror
soon or they will continue to fight the other fish in the mirror?
How smart are they ?

It is difficult to take the foil off since it is in a tight space
between the tank and room wall... First day I turned off the lights
sooner and wonder what will the group advice be...
Should I go trought the trouble of removing the foil or the fish
will get used to this reflection soon ? If so, how soon will it be ?

Fish are not intelligent at all, they don't need to be, they have instincts
instead of handling difficult decisions.
I used to raise fighting chicken. They are territorial and will defend its
domain to the death, literally.
You see, they have no choice, they will respond to a stimuli in the same way
over and over and over again.
So, if they get a response "starter" the reaction will be the same.
In the case of fish, well, they are a couple of steps down from birds in the
evolutionary scale.
They will be triggered by the reflection and will respond in the same way
for ever regardless of self-injury. Remember, animals don't know death or
that their wounds are not going to heal.
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

"Pszemol" wrote in message
...
I have a problem... in my huge wisom I have covered a side wall
of the fishtank with a mirror-foil. Just to cover the unpleasant view
behind of the tank... and to get some more light reflected back.
Today I let the fish in this new tank...

A pair of maroon clowns and hepatus tang get crazy seeing their
own reflection in the tank wall.

Now my title question: will they realize this is just a mirror
soon or they will continue to fight the other fish in the mirror?
How smart are they ?

It is difficult to take the foil off since it is in a tight space
between the tank and room wall... First day I turned off the lights
sooner and wonder what will the group advice be...
Should I go trought the trouble of removing the foil or the fish
will get used to this reflection soon ? If so, how soon will it be ?

Inabón Yunes wrote on 7/23/2006 12:50 AM:
Fish are not intelligent at all, they don't need to be, they have instincts
instead of handling difficult decisions.

Not true.
Fish are able to learn who feeds them, and who doesn't.
Able to learn what the fish food container looks like.
Able to recognize the fridge when someone opens the door,
and they will beg for food every time you open the fridge
if they are used to getting frozen food.
Able to learn to come to you when you call them.
And able to learn many other things.

I used to raise fighting chicken. They are territorial and will defend its
domain to the death, literally.
You see, they have no choice, they will respond to a stimuli in the same way
over and over and over again.
So, if they get a response "starter" the reaction will be the same.
In the case of fish, well, they are a couple of steps down from birds in the
evolutionary scale.
They will be triggered by the reflection and will respond in the same way
for ever regardless of self-injury. Remember, animals don't know death or
that their wounds are not going to heal.

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.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

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

Wayne, Wayne...
When I was teaching biology in a CC, I knew better than to argue with lost
causes.
Just to give you an example of your lost cause here is a simple question;
When and where the fish told you all those things?
Now, here is a more complicated question;
Who told fish that they are going to die, God?
Fish are animals not humans like many people would like to think, you for
example.
They act as a response, they are able to learn a response to a stimuli, that
is not intelligence. As I type here and hit the X key, for example, the
computer writes that letter in a way that I can interpret it. Better yet,
if I combine the X with the CTRL key, it will perfom a different task.
Actually, if you use Word for example, it even completes the words for you
or correct your spelling if instructed...
Do you think my laptop is smart or just responding to a stimuli?
lets see!
iy
"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
...


Inabón Yunes wrote on 7/23/2006 12:50 AM:
Fish are not intelligent at all, they don't need to be, they have
instincts instead of handling difficult decisions.

Not true.
Fish are able to learn who feeds them, and who doesn't.
Able to learn what the fish food container looks like. Able to recognize
the fridge when someone opens the door, and they will beg for food every
time you open the fridge if they are used to getting frozen food.
Able to learn to come to you when you call them.
And able to learn many other things.

I used to raise fighting chicken. They are territorial and will defend
its domain to the death, literally.
You see, they have no choice, they will respond to a stimuli in the same
way over and over and over again.
So, if they get a response "starter" the reaction will be the same.
In the case of fish, well, they are a couple of steps down from birds in
the evolutionary scale.
They will be triggered by the reflection and will respond in the same way
for ever regardless of self-injury. Remember, animals don't know death
or that their wounds are not going to heal.

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.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

Inabón Yunes wrote on 7/23/2006 12:50 AM:

In the case of fish, well, they are a couple of steps down from birds in the
evolutionary scale.

Evolution is a great for people that don't want to
acknowledge the reality of the Creator.

My computer evolved from a toaster oven.

I tried to make some toast the other day, but even though
the slots are of different sizes, I could not get a slice
of bread in there. Obviously, an inferior evolutionary
process. I'm sure it will become extinct soon.

Get a chain, and cut every other link. Throw out all of
the cut links. Take all of the intact links and arrange
them so that they look pretty. You will then have a good
working model of the theory of evolution.

Actually, evolution is easy to prove. Simply gather some
old bones from a variety of animals (your choice), and
some human bones, and put them together so that they look
half human, and then give it a name like Suzie.

Scientist have recently discovered a new class of
creatures down deep in the sea. They have classified them
in the zoowacko group. They have 2 heads and 3 eyes on
each head :-)

Zigg and Zagg, Martians from Venus (they were born on
Mars, but now live on Venus), did a study of the
evolutionary order on earth. They decided to first
doccument the order of evolvement of machines, since it
was what most interested them. It was quite interesting
reading, and learning how the different machines evolved
from each other, like cars, trucks, microwaves, television
sets, laptops, PDA's, watches, cranes, excetera. If you do
a search on the internet you might be able to find their
report :-)
They still have a few missing links to figure out. After
they get that study completely finished, they are going to
do their next study on animals and it's evolvement on the
great planet Earth. After both of those studies are
completed and proven, they are to decide "which came
first, the animals, or the machines?" Zigg and Zagg have
pritty-much decided that the machines came first since
they are more basic in construction than the animals, but
that has yet to be proven.


Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message ...
Inabón Yunes wrote on 7/23/2006 12:50 AM:

In the case of fish, well, they are a couple of steps down from birds in the evolutionary scale.

Evolution is a great for people that don't want to
acknowledge the reality of the Creator.

Creationism is great or people that don't want to
acknowledge the fact they are alone in the Universe
and there is no God listening to their prayers :-)

My computer evolved from a toaster oven.

I tried to make some toast the other day, but even though the slots are of different sizes, I could not get a slice of bread in
there. Obviously, an inferior evolutionary process. I'm sure it will become extinct soon.

No, it is not evolved from the toaster oven, Wayne...
That was quite a foolish example :-)

Get a chain, and cut every other link. Throw out all of the cut links. Take all of the intact links and arrange them so that they
look pretty. You will then have a good working model of the theory of evolution.

Only people who do not know evolution enough could
make such a comment.

Actually, evolution is easy to prove. Simply gather some old bones from a variety of animals (your choice), and some human bones,
and put them together so that they look half human, and then give it a name like Suzie.

Evolution theory gets new proofs every day with all the work
scientists are doing all over The World. The problem is
that you will not learn about these discoveries in church!
You need to read some real books to find out about them!
For some people, it is way too difficult to read science books,
so they settle for "easy answers" derived from "Holy Bible".
They do not explain anything this way - they just replace
missing knowledge with unable to be prooven fairy tales... LOL :-)
Every interesting question has only one answer in Creationism:
"God did it". This way you can explain everything, but you
will remain KNOWING NOTHING AT ALL.

Scientist have recently discovered a new class of creatures down deep in the sea. They have classified them in the zoowacko group.
They have 2 heads and 3 eyes on each head :-)

Oh, really ? I would like to read about them...
Throw some details, please.

Pszemol wrote on 7/24/2006 11:25 AM:
Scientist have recently discovered a new class of creatures down deep
in the sea. They have classified them in the zoowacko group. They have
2 heads and 3 eyes on each head :-)

Oh, really ? I would like to read about them...
Throw some details, please.

Notice the "zowacko" name :-) Obviously there are no
creatures with 2 heads and 3 eyes on each head. :-) There
are deformities some times, but they are not normal.

One thing that I find interesting, is that people that
believe in evolution think that there is less similarities
between people and animals than people that believe in
creation.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message ...
One thing that I find interesting, is that people that
believe in evolution think that there is less similarities
between people and animals than people that believe in
creation.

What are you talking about ? Where have you noticed this?
I find exactly opposite in my observations...

Christians believe only humans have souls - animals
are things you can kill and eat, people are "better"
than animals. Only people go to heaven, right ? :-)
The single thing Darvin said about similarities about
people to other primates created the most of his
enemies. People believing in God believe they are
special and significantly different from "beasts".

Scientists see much more similarities between humans
and other living beings than creationists.