Silver dollars: The dumbest fish?
- Thread starter AquaticAustin
- Start date
I'm afraid it's going to come to that.I hate for this to happen to any of my fish but I sure wish it were one of my regular silvers rather than one of my biggest red hooks.
It's always your favorites that go first. Red Hooks are nice but cost a pretty penny here in Oz, the fish store down the road from me has some big ones in an 8' tank & they are impressive but they want $50 or more i think for 1 juvie. Prices like that they can keep em..
I have some of the spotteds, and they are... not bright. If there's a storm anywhere near coming in, they hide all day. Unless I put food in, then they gobble it up as fast as possible and then hide again. You'd think they'd eventually learn that the storm wasn't going to hurt them, especially since we get storms fairly often, but apparently they aren't capable of learning. They also seemingly haven't learned not to nibble on tankmates' flanks. Or bite each other. A couple of them have chomp marks out of their foreheads from when the males were sparring. Must not be much room in their heads for brain, I guess.
Ever see a school of silver dollars in the middle of a mad-dash panic suddenly realize there's food? They basically go "AAAAAAAAA OH WAIT FOOD *OMNOMNOM* AAAAAA *OMNOMNOM* AAAAA *OMNOM* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" until they're too tired and full to keep dashing.
Then again, a lot of schooling fish don't really seem to be very smart. I imagine they're mostly or entirely acting on instinct and merely reacting to stimuli rather than actually processing things and responding. Cichlids and solitary fish seem like they're thinking at least a little bit, and they usually seem to be actually watching things, but dollars kinda just act on their programming.
Ever see a school of silver dollars in the middle of a mad-dash panic suddenly realize there's food? They basically go "AAAAAAAAA OH WAIT FOOD *OMNOMNOM* AAAAAA *OMNOMNOM* AAAAA *OMNOM* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" until they're too tired and full to keep dashing.
Then again, a lot of schooling fish don't really seem to be very smart. I imagine they're mostly or entirely acting on instinct and merely reacting to stimuli rather than actually processing things and responding. Cichlids and solitary fish seem like they're thinking at least a little bit, and they usually seem to be actually watching things, but dollars kinda just act on their programming.
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You heard right but to be fair to the Store in question is arguably the best in my area & he doesn't charge much more than the dodgiest stores. If you've heard the fish are expensive you should see what they charge for a bottle of prime, this is off the top of my head so i can't be 100% sure (i looked at his prices once & never looked back) but i think it's $80 for a litre, 1kg of Massivore $160, you can only imagine what he's charging for everything else. Once again though, to be fair, he has a lot of staff & keeps his shop pristine with good quality fish & as much as i like to support him there are much cheaper alternatives thank god.
So my red hook might not be completely out of the woods yet but it seems to be slowly getting better.It no longer goes in circles and spirals but it swims at an oddd angle.It keeps up with the others and is now eating,which should be a good sign lol.
I hate skiddish fish and try to avoid them. I had a few tinfoil barbs back in the 90's that went nuts everytime you entered the room.
The last bala shark I had(got from a friend) had a slight advantage of being about 10 feet away when he saw us coming. It cut down some jumping.
That's another advantage of goldfish...they are not so jumpy.
The last bala shark I had(got from a friend) had a slight advantage of being about 10 feet away when he saw us coming. It cut down some jumping.
That's another advantage of goldfish...they are not so jumpy.
I don't really care for skittish fish either.I have always liked red hooks though and finally was able to get some in a trade deal.I did not know that they were so jumpy.
I wasn't aware thay yiu were into goldfish borg.I thought you just kept plecos.
