Do you punish your fish

[Lil_Stinker]

I punished recently. First time. My large male convict was all of a sudden attacking the girl. He had grown much bigger than her and she ended up hiding in the corner or in between the filter tube and the heater. She would end up going sideways as if dying... from stress I imagine. So I put him in a 1 gallon tank for a few days (constantly cleaning the water!) to give her a break. Not so much as punishment but to prevent a murder! Though everyone around me thought I was, saying, "put his *** in that little tank!" And after she seemed ok I put them back together and man!!! He went nuts! Like "oh yea? take me out ima kill her" and he did. So now he's perfectly fine in there with about 30 fry. You can't punish a convict... they're born too bad for their own good

Actually with convicts, heat may be the issue... Cooler water puts them into mating mode.. if the water is warmer, the male protects the fry & beats the mom.. if you cooled the water then he would eat the fry & chase the mommy for other reasons ~wink~wink~

 

[girl_interrupted]

I completely agree many fish, especially Cichlids, are much smarter than people give them credit for…

Many of my fish recognize me over other people and respond much differently when I approach the tank than other people.

I also tap on the glass to put my hand in the tank and move towards a fish to break up a fight or otherwise discourage behavior I don’t like.

But to think we can “punish” our fish to make it stop following it’s nature is expecting to much. Cichlid are by nature aggressive fish with certain territorial needs. They also have an instinctual need to establish a pecking order. No amount of “time outs”, flicking in the nose, etc will overcome them following their nature…

If you want your fish to not be aggressive, I suggest you keep a non aggressive species…

And while I find many of the posts in this thread amusing (drowning a fish, throwing a bird off a cliff… good ones) and totally understand most are silly exaggerations and read that way… there are a handful of people attempting to break a fish from it’s nature, which I do not think is good practice and definitely do not think is good advice.

I’m not freaking out because you do it… but I think people come to forums for good advice and I cannot help but to discourage members from promoting bad advice… Call me a fanatic if you wish, I’m just trying to make MFK more beneficial to the new hobbyist…

I did punish my convict by chasing him around w/the net after he killed my bonnie. And after that he just went crazy. I get up to the glass and he goes back and forth trying to find a hole in the glass to attack me. He's gotten crazier, but theres 30 fry growing quickly to create mutiny So I'm not worried about it. DAMN MOE !!

 

[trojan09]

i dont think u can ever punish ur fish lol. but i think if u "can" dont over do it cause u gonna stress ur fish out to much!

 

[sushiray]

I punished my angels tank once when I did a 50% w/c & forgot to Prime. hrs later my 3biggest angels & 1baby koi angel were all gasping for air, 2 other angels a baby bala & a lg bloodfin all croaked. tho my 2 plecos & 1 lg albino cory survived also. that was pure punishment, albeit inadvertently. 8=(

 

[disgustipated]

i stomp on the floor when my Africans don't get along.They are very aggressive and fight all the time I find that using positive reinforcement, they seem to be less aggressive. For example when they start fighting stomp on the floor, and they jump. If they are just displaying or being non aggressive a lil food can make them feel good and when they fight they seem to go back to being normal. Its like nobody messes with the biggest fish and when some others are fighting he comes out and stops them, or joins in so like you stomp and ur telling them ur the biggest fish lol. also i find that with Africans a huge 3 year old pleco can moderate alot of commotion mine wont take any one messing with him and when they do and they do alot he bullies them back its great watching a 14 inch plec chase around other fish he is the only south American in the tank and does very well at high PH i have successfully traind my cichlids to eat out of my hand and they really respond to positive reinforcement like my son and my wife can be around them all the time with normal behavior but when some one else come around they all hide and i walk up to the tank and feed them and they all come out and all of a sudden they are fine with that person

 

[L021]

I have a 2.5 gallon which my acara went in for a few mins after killing and eating a danio. He still loves me though

 

[1974Pantera]

Punish your fish.....?????

 

[GarNiac]

Punish your fish.....?????

dont start the fire on others tread which all ready been answered by people, these people just wanna know others thought.

 

[barracuda123]

my 4'' flowerhorn hits my 9''plec but i dont do anything just laugh. lol

 

[tcarswell]

I had to try this out so I went into my fish room where my Oscar was in his tank pushing around gravel. I reached in and socked him right in his fat face and sure enough he stopped moving the gravel around. I guess it works...