(blog post, thought I would share here...all in good humour, please don't start debating the finer points of fish brains here...not my intentions!) 
So I've been thinking lately about fish and personalities. People scoff at me sometimes when I say my fish have personalities, but they do! I imagine them with little thought bubbles over their heads, telling me things. Does that make me nuts?
I think I already crossed the insanity barrier years ago in regards to my animals. Ah well.
Norbert the blue crayfish comes to mind here. This guy has major personality. Recently I upgraded their 20 gallon tank to a 29. I decided to leave his cave out, because there were plenty of other places in the new setup for him to hide. He was not too thrilled about this, and spent the first day in his new tank pacing along the front of the glass cussing me out. Seriously, you know how in cartoons they put *$)@#! in place of cussing? That's what was floating in the water above his head as he paced. Little symbols, cussing me out.
He got over it eventually, but soon found something new to complain about. He's a grumpy old man. A bright blue, huge clawed grumpy old man. He's even a bit crippled, one of his claws got stuck in a molt and is twisted. It just ads to his whole grumpy old man persona.
My parrot cichlids are little puppy dogs. They beg for food like no dog I've ever seen, and they are very good at it too. I can rarely walk past the tank without feeding them something. They have the "WE ARE STARVING" big eyed, wiggle-butted look down pat. I put my face up to the tank and there is a huge blur of orange as 10 parrots come flying at my face, begging for a morsel. Fat little pigs.
Shamu, the black ghost knifefish, is like the annoying little kid brother. He's curious about everything and afraid of nothing. I put my hand in the tank and he is immediately up there, nibbling on me, using his decidedly outside voice to say "HI HOW ARE YOU WHATCHA DOING HUH HUH YOU TASTE PURDY I LOVE YOU". This is a species that is known to hide a lot and be extremely nocturnal. Not my Shamu. He's a favourite for sure.
The tank in the kitchen is the Mafia tank. Pea puffers and bumblebee gobys. Very tiny, quiet, unsuspecting fish, until they smell blood. Put a bloodworm cube in that tank and your fingers better be out of the way or I swear, you will lose a few. They come of of nowhere, attacking the food like a pack of ravenous, blood thirsty lions. When they have had their fill, they slither back into their clubhouse, cracking their knuckles and smoking their cigars, plotting the next bloodshed. Mean little suckers, I tell ya. They could easily take down a fish 10 times their size.
I think they are adorable.
Louie
EVERY fish in my brackish water tank is on crack. They never sit still. If you are anywhere in the vicinity of their tank, they are begging for attention. Come see us, come talk to us, we love you, pet me, pet ME, NO COME BACKKKKK!!!!! It unnerves my clients a little when they are standing at the counter paying for their dog grooms and an entire school of Odie-like fish are staring at them, wiggling their tails and panting, leaving puddles of drool in the sand.
My reef tank has huge personality. Tonks the clownfish thinks she is a bodyguard. It always appalls people when I tell them clownfish are actually rather aggressive. Not NEMO! Oh yes, Nemos are nasty. I put my hand in that tank a lot, to hand-feed the crabs or corals, adjust rock, clean the glass, etc. Thus, I have about half a million "love bites" from Tonks on my arm and fingers. She hates me. She attacks me with gusto the moment my hand gets in the tank. I flick her away and it just makes her angrier. When my hands are not in the tank, she's swimming up and down the side that faces my bed, mocking me, daring me. One can always tell when my hands are in the tank based on the screams of "GO AWAY DAMN YOU FREAKING ORANGE FISH!" and endless streams of "ouches" and other assorted cuss words.
Come on...touch it...I dare you...
Then there is Herbie. Herbie is a Russian Spy. I have yet to figure out what his orders are or whom he is spying on, but I have no doubt the Russians sent him over here sometimes in the 1930's and he just never left. He flits from rock to rock, finding a hiding spot, blending in perfectly and holding completely still other than his eyeballs, which creepily move independently of one another. His eyelashes are little periscopes, shooting up over his eyes like antennas, picking up who-knows-what. Probably Animal Planet HD. He gathers his intelligence and darts back into his cave to report to the boss, whom I have feelings may very well be Emma the Emerald Crab. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.
He also stares at me. A lot. He perches on a rock by the bed side of the tank, focuses both of his little eyeballs on me and...stares. For ages. I can feel him looking at me and I've tried everything to break this habit because it honestly creeps me out. I flick at the glass. I yell at him. I even tried staring him down myself one.
He won.
Emma is the tank boss. I got her as a cute little crab with reassurance she wouldn't get much larger. She molted 5 times in 2 months and grew into this ginormous, ravenous thing. I have to hand feed her a piece of table shrimp twice a week to keep her from robbing Fern the anemone of her meal. She sees my hand in the tank and comes rushing forward, banishing her rolling pin with curlers falling out of her hairnet and her mumu swirling around her like a tornado as she screams at me for coming to steal her pies. Offers of food appease her, which she grabs out of my fingers and storms back into her house, slams the door and chows down.
Shes frightens me a bit.
Mr Whiskers is the newest addition, a coral banded shrimp with the longest whiskers you have ever seen. I can always tell where he is, no matter how hard he tries to hide, because his long white whiskers give him away. He tries hard though, and always seems a bit dejected to see my face pressed against the glass staring at him. He just wants to blend in!
He moves about as slow as one can possibly move. In fact, J at the pet store and I couldn't really decide if he was alive or not when she bagged him for me. We poked and prodded at him for awhile and he just floated there. I took him home, dumped him in the tank (ok, no, I didn't, I drip-acclimated him for an hour before releasing him, but that doesn't sound as good), and watched him to see if he made it. Three hours later he had moved half an inch, and I text messaged J to proudly tell her Mr. Whiskers was indeed, alive.
I was hesitant to add him to the reef as some say they are not reef friendly, but J said I could return him if he picked on anything. I no longer worry, as if he does decide to pick on anything, he will do it so slowly said resident would have time to send a hand-written complaint by UPS ground shipping to Asia before he actually did any damage. The only thing he does fast is regenerate missing limbs. When I got him he was missing one of his claws. I checked on him every night before bed to see what he was up to and no claw. Woke up one morning and there it was, fully regrown. Go figure.
Then there is Fern, the green bubble tipped anemone. When I first got her, I spent hours watching her, fretting over her, worrying about her. She didn't like where I put her in the tank, but settled quickly in a good spot and stayed there happily for ages. Then one morning, I look in the tank to find this...
...a melting, deflated, gaping anemone. I freaked out. I nearly cried. I had to go to work, and spent all day worrying about my poor, dying anemone. I came home, rushed upstairs, peered in the tank...and she was fine. Waving tentacles lazily in the water, happily hosting her clowns. Research soon educated me that she was pooping.
POOPING! THE DAMN THING WAS POOPING!
I knew they expelled waste, I just was not expecting that drastic of a showdown about it. Cripes almighty.
After she was in the tank about a month, I decided to start adding some corals. Research told me to make sure the anemone was happily stuck to a rock in place and not roaming around the tank, which was was a sign of poor conditions, which can lead to a wandering, coral-stinging spree as she looked for a better place to settle. She hadn't moved an inch since the day I got her, so I figured all was well and placed an order with Oceans Paradise. Went to bed dreaming of mushrooms and featherdusters, work up to a missing anemone.
Sure thing, the little brat had moved overnight. She was now on the other side of the rockwork, wedged deep down into a crevice, looking dejected and mopey. Like a little kid who knows the new baby is gonna get all the attention. I cursed at her and left, tired of fretting and too late to do anything about it anyhow, since I was expecting the box from the reef store that morning.
She's stayed there since, healthy and happy as ever. She just likes to freak me out I think. As soon as I leave for work, she snickers and turns back into her fully inflated, green gorgeous self.
Even Flubber the bubble-eyed goldfish is bursting with personality. He is the aquatic equivalent of a 13 year old basset hound. His eye bubbles sag to his knees (or they would, if fish had knees) and he is slow, fat and always hungry. When he musters up enough energy to actually swim around, he wears himself out quickly, huffing and puffing and sagging his way to the top of the tank where he floats there, looking dead. I cannot tell you how many times I have walked by this tank, glanced in, sighed sadly and went to get the net to flush him. I'm always happily surprised to take the lid off and see him looking up at me in annoyance for interrupting his nap.
His tank mate is Flicker, an orange glo-fish who is his complete and total opposite. Streamlined, fast and always moving. I tried to take a picture of him once, but that failed miserably. I think he has broken the light-sound barrier a few times.
Ain't Nothin But a Hound Fish...
They are best buddies. Two oddballs in a pod. It will be a sad day when the time comes for either one of them. I don't know what they would do without one another.
So yes, fish have personalities. That, and perhaps I have an over-active imagination.
You can ask my fish, they will tell you all about it.
So I've been thinking lately about fish and personalities. People scoff at me sometimes when I say my fish have personalities, but they do! I imagine them with little thought bubbles over their heads, telling me things. Does that make me nuts?
I think I already crossed the insanity barrier years ago in regards to my animals. Ah well.
Norbert the blue crayfish comes to mind here. This guy has major personality. Recently I upgraded their 20 gallon tank to a 29. I decided to leave his cave out, because there were plenty of other places in the new setup for him to hide. He was not too thrilled about this, and spent the first day in his new tank pacing along the front of the glass cussing me out. Seriously, you know how in cartoons they put *$)@#! in place of cussing? That's what was floating in the water above his head as he paced. Little symbols, cussing me out.
He got over it eventually, but soon found something new to complain about. He's a grumpy old man. A bright blue, huge clawed grumpy old man. He's even a bit crippled, one of his claws got stuck in a molt and is twisted. It just ads to his whole grumpy old man persona.
My parrot cichlids are little puppy dogs. They beg for food like no dog I've ever seen, and they are very good at it too. I can rarely walk past the tank without feeding them something. They have the "WE ARE STARVING" big eyed, wiggle-butted look down pat. I put my face up to the tank and there is a huge blur of orange as 10 parrots come flying at my face, begging for a morsel. Fat little pigs.
Shamu, the black ghost knifefish, is like the annoying little kid brother. He's curious about everything and afraid of nothing. I put my hand in the tank and he is immediately up there, nibbling on me, using his decidedly outside voice to say "HI HOW ARE YOU WHATCHA DOING HUH HUH YOU TASTE PURDY I LOVE YOU". This is a species that is known to hide a lot and be extremely nocturnal. Not my Shamu. He's a favourite for sure.
The tank in the kitchen is the Mafia tank. Pea puffers and bumblebee gobys. Very tiny, quiet, unsuspecting fish, until they smell blood. Put a bloodworm cube in that tank and your fingers better be out of the way or I swear, you will lose a few. They come of of nowhere, attacking the food like a pack of ravenous, blood thirsty lions. When they have had their fill, they slither back into their clubhouse, cracking their knuckles and smoking their cigars, plotting the next bloodshed. Mean little suckers, I tell ya. They could easily take down a fish 10 times their size.
I think they are adorable.
Louie
EVERY fish in my brackish water tank is on crack. They never sit still. If you are anywhere in the vicinity of their tank, they are begging for attention. Come see us, come talk to us, we love you, pet me, pet ME, NO COME BACKKKKK!!!!! It unnerves my clients a little when they are standing at the counter paying for their dog grooms and an entire school of Odie-like fish are staring at them, wiggling their tails and panting, leaving puddles of drool in the sand.
My reef tank has huge personality. Tonks the clownfish thinks she is a bodyguard. It always appalls people when I tell them clownfish are actually rather aggressive. Not NEMO! Oh yes, Nemos are nasty. I put my hand in that tank a lot, to hand-feed the crabs or corals, adjust rock, clean the glass, etc. Thus, I have about half a million "love bites" from Tonks on my arm and fingers. She hates me. She attacks me with gusto the moment my hand gets in the tank. I flick her away and it just makes her angrier. When my hands are not in the tank, she's swimming up and down the side that faces my bed, mocking me, daring me. One can always tell when my hands are in the tank based on the screams of "GO AWAY DAMN YOU FREAKING ORANGE FISH!" and endless streams of "ouches" and other assorted cuss words.
Come on...touch it...I dare you...
Then there is Herbie. Herbie is a Russian Spy. I have yet to figure out what his orders are or whom he is spying on, but I have no doubt the Russians sent him over here sometimes in the 1930's and he just never left. He flits from rock to rock, finding a hiding spot, blending in perfectly and holding completely still other than his eyeballs, which creepily move independently of one another. His eyelashes are little periscopes, shooting up over his eyes like antennas, picking up who-knows-what. Probably Animal Planet HD. He gathers his intelligence and darts back into his cave to report to the boss, whom I have feelings may very well be Emma the Emerald Crab. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.
He also stares at me. A lot. He perches on a rock by the bed side of the tank, focuses both of his little eyeballs on me and...stares. For ages. I can feel him looking at me and I've tried everything to break this habit because it honestly creeps me out. I flick at the glass. I yell at him. I even tried staring him down myself one.
He won.
Emma is the tank boss. I got her as a cute little crab with reassurance she wouldn't get much larger. She molted 5 times in 2 months and grew into this ginormous, ravenous thing. I have to hand feed her a piece of table shrimp twice a week to keep her from robbing Fern the anemone of her meal. She sees my hand in the tank and comes rushing forward, banishing her rolling pin with curlers falling out of her hairnet and her mumu swirling around her like a tornado as she screams at me for coming to steal her pies. Offers of food appease her, which she grabs out of my fingers and storms back into her house, slams the door and chows down.
Shes frightens me a bit.
Mr Whiskers is the newest addition, a coral banded shrimp with the longest whiskers you have ever seen. I can always tell where he is, no matter how hard he tries to hide, because his long white whiskers give him away. He tries hard though, and always seems a bit dejected to see my face pressed against the glass staring at him. He just wants to blend in!
He moves about as slow as one can possibly move. In fact, J at the pet store and I couldn't really decide if he was alive or not when she bagged him for me. We poked and prodded at him for awhile and he just floated there. I took him home, dumped him in the tank (ok, no, I didn't, I drip-acclimated him for an hour before releasing him, but that doesn't sound as good), and watched him to see if he made it. Three hours later he had moved half an inch, and I text messaged J to proudly tell her Mr. Whiskers was indeed, alive.
I was hesitant to add him to the reef as some say they are not reef friendly, but J said I could return him if he picked on anything. I no longer worry, as if he does decide to pick on anything, he will do it so slowly said resident would have time to send a hand-written complaint by UPS ground shipping to Asia before he actually did any damage. The only thing he does fast is regenerate missing limbs. When I got him he was missing one of his claws. I checked on him every night before bed to see what he was up to and no claw. Woke up one morning and there it was, fully regrown. Go figure.
Then there is Fern, the green bubble tipped anemone. When I first got her, I spent hours watching her, fretting over her, worrying about her. She didn't like where I put her in the tank, but settled quickly in a good spot and stayed there happily for ages. Then one morning, I look in the tank to find this...
...a melting, deflated, gaping anemone. I freaked out. I nearly cried. I had to go to work, and spent all day worrying about my poor, dying anemone. I came home, rushed upstairs, peered in the tank...and she was fine. Waving tentacles lazily in the water, happily hosting her clowns. Research soon educated me that she was pooping.
POOPING! THE DAMN THING WAS POOPING!
I knew they expelled waste, I just was not expecting that drastic of a showdown about it. Cripes almighty.
After she was in the tank about a month, I decided to start adding some corals. Research told me to make sure the anemone was happily stuck to a rock in place and not roaming around the tank, which was was a sign of poor conditions, which can lead to a wandering, coral-stinging spree as she looked for a better place to settle. She hadn't moved an inch since the day I got her, so I figured all was well and placed an order with Oceans Paradise. Went to bed dreaming of mushrooms and featherdusters, work up to a missing anemone.
Sure thing, the little brat had moved overnight. She was now on the other side of the rockwork, wedged deep down into a crevice, looking dejected and mopey. Like a little kid who knows the new baby is gonna get all the attention. I cursed at her and left, tired of fretting and too late to do anything about it anyhow, since I was expecting the box from the reef store that morning.
She's stayed there since, healthy and happy as ever. She just likes to freak me out I think. As soon as I leave for work, she snickers and turns back into her fully inflated, green gorgeous self.
Even Flubber the bubble-eyed goldfish is bursting with personality. He is the aquatic equivalent of a 13 year old basset hound. His eye bubbles sag to his knees (or they would, if fish had knees) and he is slow, fat and always hungry. When he musters up enough energy to actually swim around, he wears himself out quickly, huffing and puffing and sagging his way to the top of the tank where he floats there, looking dead. I cannot tell you how many times I have walked by this tank, glanced in, sighed sadly and went to get the net to flush him. I'm always happily surprised to take the lid off and see him looking up at me in annoyance for interrupting his nap.
His tank mate is Flicker, an orange glo-fish who is his complete and total opposite. Streamlined, fast and always moving. I tried to take a picture of him once, but that failed miserably. I think he has broken the light-sound barrier a few times.
Ain't Nothin But a Hound Fish...
They are best buddies. Two oddballs in a pod. It will be a sad day when the time comes for either one of them. I don't know what they would do without one another.
So yes, fish have personalities. That, and perhaps I have an over-active imagination.
You can ask my fish, they will tell you all about it.
