What are the most Intelligent CA and SA Cichlids?

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Fish_Man_Dan said:
well, i trained a 3 inch oscar to swim through a hoop when i flicked the water (and only when i flicked the water)... I compared it to a sunfish (same size, didn't associate the hoop with food, just swam through it to get the food on the other side) and a venustus (same size, scared of it). the oscar was the only one to actually associate the hoop and flicking the water with a food reward. I worked on training all 3 at the same time in seperate tanks over a course of approx. 2 months, 5 days a week. it was a project for school. the oscar learned the hoop trick in a couple weeks, then went on to learn to do it on command. the hoop was only in each tank for the time I was working on each individual fish. after the trials, i removed the hoop and hid it from their line of sight.

Even when i moved the oscar temporarily to a smaller tank for display (project fair) she still did it only after 1 day of being in there! Oscars are the smartest fish i've tested... I'll eventually do it again using a new oscar and a few south/central american cichlids.
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Yeah man Ill 2nd that ! Oscar are the smartest fish Ive owned.


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In all my years Oscars for South America and Midas Cichlids for Central America. Hands down.
 
central american = trimac.....south american = oscar and one other i had to mention is a madagascan cichlid paratalapia polleni, that fish is almost human im almost positive that when air bubbles come out of his mouth there is stuff written in them
 
clayton1985 said:
central american = trimac.....south american = oscar and one other i had to mention is a madagascan cichlid paratalapia polleni, that fish is almost human im almost positive that when air bubbles come out of his mouth there is stuff written in them
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Air writing, LOL!
I've been curious about both Polleni & Bleekeri. Can you describe your polleni's personality more? How do the owner interactive behaviors compare with O & Trimac?
I read that bleekeri are more outgoing that polleni, & females of both generally more outgoing than males.

(if my questions are too OT, pm me or post another thread. plz)
 
petspoiler said:
Air writing, LOL!
I've been curious about both Polleni & Bleekeri. Can you describe your polleni's personality more? How do the owner interactive behaviors compare with O & Trimac?
I read that bleekeri are more outgoing that polleni, & females of both generally more outgoing than males.

(if my questions are too OT, pm me or post another thread. plz)
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To be honest its traits are similar to that of an oscar, except more curious, its the first guy at the front of the tank, always dancing for food and will pretty much sit in your hand when your cleaning the tank. I cant speak for every polleni because iv only owned one but i would certainly get another. What i would say is dont put them in with any really aggressive fish, they are not overly aggressive and all though they can handle themselves there not in the same legue as some of the more well terratorial cichlids. I had my guy in with a couple of vieja and noticed he was beggining to get a little nipped at. Hope that helps and if you have any more questions feel free to ask.
 
For me its my Oscar.
 
Oscars definitely win this one they are extremely smart and they aren't some dumb little guys who just swim around they have personality and become a member of the family my little 3 inch albino one was teasing some other fish in his tank. In that tank I have
1-albino tiger Oscar
8-rosey red minnows
4-buenos aires tetras
2-bleeding heart tetras
1-Chinese algae eater
3-small plecos
All these fish are approximately 1"-3" the Oscar is the biggest and so I dropped in the minnows and I had dropped in 9 and he swims up under some of my anachris and waited for one to swim by and BAM! He took its head clean off and now he is eating half of my breeding stock of snails that I dropped in there but I still have two more breeding snail tanks


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All I can say is expecting to be fed 24/7 in a glass cage has nothing to do with intelligence, if anything it's the other way around. We humans obviously like to think that our pet fish loves us, "greets us" every morning and thinks of us as something more than a walking free meal, but that's simply not true. They don't understand what's going on or thank you for providing for them every day, they just instinctively assume that every time you show up there will be a free meal dropped in the water, so they go for it. Petting a fish (as in touching it) is not only bad for them (damages their slime coat) but it also tells you a lot about how smart they really are... I'm sure the natives in Central America that see these fish as food would love for them to come for a bonding session, preferably involving a frying pan and some lemon butter sauce.

A real example of intelligence is dolphins driving schools of fish to the fishermen casting nets in order to get an easy meal (not from the fishermen, but from the casting nets themselves, so they're basically using our own technology to catch their food), killer whales creating artificial waves to dump the seals off the ice floes, or octopuses opening screw-top jars to get the tasty crab sitting inside. Sadly, Cichlids are nowhere near that level of reasoning, no matter how great they look and how much fun we have with them.
 
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