Is my goldfish learning?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Everyone gets a goldfish as a kid. I’m sure everyone here can tell about the excitement of the new pet, and then how many days within a week it died.

I had one when I was about six named Jake. I only remember two things about him: cleaning his bowl when it got dirty and flushing him down the toilet when he died.

Someone gave me a goldfish about a month ago. Just a one gallon bowl like the one I had when I was a kid. I googled how to care for goldfish, and discovered that if you don’t have at least ten gallons of water per goldfish in a temperature-controlled, filtered fish tank with Baby Einstein accessories, a personal trainer, gravel mined by hand from Uruguay, filtered water from mountain streams, a tank made from pure crystal, and an underwater music system, you basically are Adolph Hitler.

Well, Jake II is staying in his one gallon bowl until I find someone with a large tank who wants him. Or he has to be flushed. He’s lucky I bought him water conditioner and food.

I figure the least I can do is change is water every other day. When I first got him, he was pretty small and…not too bright. I’d put in food twice a day, and he would have no idea it was there. I don’t think i saw him eat the first few weeks because I’d have to walk away after a while.

As the weeks have gone by, I’ve noticed a few things. One, he’s gotten quite a bit bigger. I’m not sure how much, but it’s noticeable. But the weird thing…I swear he knows me. He’s in my classroom and kids look at him all the time…he’ll swim over and look at them then swim away. But when he sees me…he kinda…dances around trying to get my attention. If I lean in and look at him just like anyone else, he’ll go nuts and go to the surface, presumably looking for food. And he especially goes nuts the two times a day I feed him–I mean, not when I feed him, but at the time he gets fed. I swear he knows when it’s supper time.

When I first used a net to catch him, he’s zoom all around avoiding it. Now he swims calmly into the net. When I first would catch him, he’d thrash around in the net. Now he just lays there patiently while I toss him in a plastic cup of water. After I’d clean his bowl, it would be tough to pour him back in because he’s swim upstream back into the cup. Now he gets all ready and dives into his bowl.

He also likes it when I play guitar.

Or…I’m turning into a lunatic who thinks his pets are smarter than everyone else’s, but never really having been around fish before, I dunno.

2

A related thing is that beta fish are often used as test subjects for students in college level psychology conditioning classes. They are cheap, easy to raise, and easy to condition. That is probably what is happening to your goldfish. You may be crazy in general for all I know but many fish can be training in response to a stimulus so it is probably real and has something to do with you feeding him or her.

You are probably changing the water too much BTW. Their tanks needs to develop its own eco-system.

3

Some fish are more intelligent than others, and yes, goldfish are reasonably intelligent as far as fish go

intelligence can range from dumber than dirt (Danios, Neons, any of the mindless schooling species) to the highly intelligent and “personable” (many cichlids like Oscars, Jack Dempseys, Firemouths, Tanganikayns), Bettas, and pufferfish), generally speaking, I’ve found that many “soft rayed” fishes are reasonably dense (exceptions being goldies and bettas) and most spiny-rayed fishes (cichlids, catfish and the like) are at least smart enough to recognize their pet human and beg for food

A while ago I had a Green Spotted pufferfish in a brackish tank, named him Zaphod, whenever he saw me, he would swim to the front of the tank, and swim up and down to beg for food, he was hand-tame, I could feed him shrimp from my fingers, I could put a cupped hand into the water and he’d “sit” in my hand, he’d let me “pet” him

his favorite food was crawfish, he had a definite plan for attack, drop a craw in the tank, he’d do the following;
1; bite off the claws to disarm (disclaw) the craw
2; bite off the eyes, to blind the craw
3; perform a killing bite at the base of the carapace, right behind the eyes, in the general location of the craw’s brain
he’d then eat the rest of the craw at his leisure, removing and eating the tail first

and the most interesting proof of intelligence;
in the morning, when I got up for work, he’d be up before me, begging for food, splashing the surface of the tank if I wasn’t fast enough for him, he’d follow my movements around the tank as I got ready for work, and follow me as far as he could when I left the room

when I got home, I’d sneak into the room, invariably, he’d be sitting on the gravel at the bottom of the tank, his colors muted and dull, his stomach a grayish black, he actually looked sad and lonely

the instant he saw me, he’d turn to face me, his colors brightened up instantly, getting a vivid iridescent green sheen on his back, his stomach a vivid white, and he’d start begging for food, and swim around happily

if someone else walked into the room, he’d ignore them, he had a couple tankmates, a sailfin molly and a couple bumblebee gobies (tiny, snack-sized fish, he totally ignored them) which he totally ignored, he would rather spend time with his pet human

you can’t convince me that Zaphod was not a smart fish

4

They did an episode of Mythbusters about goldfish and busted the myth that they only have a three second memory. They’re not rocket scientists, but goldfish aren’t as dumb as people claim.

He knows who you are, and gets excited when he sees you because he knows you are the one with the fish flakes; my goldfish Ten gets a lot more excited to see me than anyone else because no one else feeds him on a regular basis. If you put him in a proper tank, you’ll see that he’ll quickly learn where the opening in the hood is, and station himself there when you feed him too. You might not realize it yet, but he probably watches you quite a bit - eventually he might learn how to get your attention when you’re not looking at him, by making noise that he comes to notice you can hear.

5

The gold fish has been conditioned to come to the surface when people approach. You have become associated with food.

This is actually quite a problem with fish hatcheries. Baby salmon get used to being fed and rise to the surface when people walk by. This is bad because when they get released they see a bird and rise to the surface and get eaten. Under water feeders have been put in some hatcheries to try to avoid this problem and release more natural behaving fish smolts.

6

Yeah fish can definitely learn and get conditioned. Professional bass fisherman have to deal with this all the time. The more you catch a fish, the less likely it is to eat another lure.

7

I agree that fish are more intelligent than people give them credit for. I have an angelfish who is always interested in and aware of what’s going on outside the tank. I have also heard of people teaching certain kinds of fish to do simple tricks like jumping through a hoop held over the water in response to a bell.

Kudos on educating yourself about the real needs of goldfish and trying to make things better for him with the frequent water changes. If you want to keep him, a 10 gallon tank is not all that expensive and would be sufficient for one goldfish (although you definitely would not want to put any other fish in there with it). The fact that you are willing to do water changes is a big plus for the fish.

8

Rarely is the question asked…

But yes, Lucky, our sole-surving goldfish has learned a few things, mostly to do with feeding rituals.

9

My bettas have learned which corner of the tank I usually drop their food in and will swim there when I approach. It doesn’t take them very long at all to pick up on this trick. I just got a new one a week ago and he’s already doing it.

10

Sure. My family had a goldfish that lived to be ten years old (and I don’t believe we even knew what water conditioner was, let alone bought it. Fred’s lucky we bought him fish flakes instead of just chucking leftover dinner into his bowl on the kitchen counter) and he certainly knew what the deal was. He knew if the lights were on in the kitchen it meant people were around who might feed him, and he swam around wildly trying to get our attention. If it was dark in the kitchen, Fred would just chill.

We also took him on vacation and camping with us. Good fish, he was.

11

You could always buy him the Goldfish Training Kit and see how he does.

12

I trained the three goldfish I had in college to beg for food. Sometimes when I saw them swimming in one of the top front corners of the tank, I would give them a treat.

What can I say, I’m a soft touch for animals that beg for food. No wonder one of my cats is fat.

Seconded. And when you do change the water, don’t take all the water out of the bowl. Fish tanks build up beneficial bacteria, and getting rid of all of the water also gets rid of the good bacteria.

13

Most fish learn to anticipate food. Let me know if you get your gold fish to jump through hoops on command, because that is beyond the capability of the average goldfish.

14

As the odds of dumping him off on someone else diminish, I think this is a hobby I might get interested in.

I’ll look to the 'Dope for ideas when I’m ready to, uh, “take the plunge.” :slight_smile:

15

As far as cycling the tank goes, establishing the beneficial nitrifying bacteria (nitrosomonas and nitrobacter species) generally takes about four weeks, the smaller the volume of water, the more difficult it is to keep the cycle stable, goldfish bowls are notoriously hard to cycle

the general feeling is that the minimum volume of water that can safely be cycled is 10 gallons, anything below five gallons is considered “almost impossible” to cycle

that said, I HAVE succesfully kept a stable cycle going in a 2.5 gallon aquarium, the secret was live plants, and a low fish bioload, the tank was heavily planted and stocked with a single female Betta, I kept the cycle going for well over a year until I lost the tank due to an extended power outage in winter

If this is your first serious attempt at fishkeeping, definitely start off with a ten gallon tank, add in some live plants, low-light hardy plants like Java Fern, Java Moss, Marimo moss balls, cryptocones… most of these plants have either tough leaves or are unpalatable to goldfish, who love tender-leaved aquatic plants, put a goldie in a high-light heavily planted tank, and it’ll lick it’s piscine lips, think “All-I-Can Eat-Salad-Bar!” and proceed to happily denude all those expensive exotic plants…

16

My dad has about a dozen small tanks, mostly 2-3 gallon (he builds them himself so they’re variable in size). He keeps killifish in there. Mostly breeding pairs, or fry, or single fish. He just throws in a plant or two. An air stone. And a couple of snails to clean up the bottom. Works great. He changes about 10-20% of the water each week. I don’t ever recall one of those tanks crashing.

Thing is, goldfish are notoriously messy. So it’s harder with them.

Mine lived in a pretty much bare tank. 20 gallons, I think. Three goldfish. No plants. Some gravel to play with on the bottom. And a sponge filter that hung over the side. Use a siphon hose like this to suck the crud out of the gravel. Once a week, suck out about 10-20%. If your water just has chlorine (not chloramines or other nasty stuff) you can replace the water you siphoned out with regular tap water. I never treated any of the water for that tank. Anyway, they lived for 10 years like that. Looked great. Stayed healthy.

Oh, yeah, and the reason for posting… My goldfish definitely knew me and would get excited when I walked past. They ignored other people.