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Hey,

I know that the old myth that a fish has a memory of less than 7 seconds is wrong. They learn behaviour and sometimes know their owner.

I have a friend that thinks that fish dont have memories longer than 7 seconds. I cant find any research to back up the fact that they do have good memories. or in fact learn behaviour.

Do you have facts or stories that will help prove me right???

Well, something very basic, but when I first got my guppies, and fed them, they were all over the tank. But now when I go to feed them, they all rush to the same spot in the tank when I open the hood.

Although we have covered this topic several times, Myth Busters already did this, and they concluded fish have memories longer than 7 seconds.

ANyway, if they only had a 7 second memory, how do the fish know to go to the top of the tank when you stick ur hand up there (like your going to feed them)

"fish" is a very very broad term.

Its like saying "mammal", and even that is far more narrow.
are you talking Orang? or dormouse? or dolphin?

Although fish all look reasonably similar, they are rather different. What a deep sea fish is capable of may not be what a danio is capable of.

Also, "memory" would have to be defined.

Conditioned behaviour enough? there are plenty of studies on that available, both formal and informal.

have you tried google searches? I would think some major works would have been done on such a subject.


For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Interesting. I do think they may be able to remember things past 7 seconds though.

We have 2 tanks in our living room...every afternoon, when I click on the tank light on my tank, they all race to the surface since they know they are about to be fed.

Whenever anyone walks upto my husband's tank (tiger barbs), they zip to the ONE corner faster than lighting & flip out in hopes they will be fed. I always feed them in that particular corner!

I definitely agree. I have fish in one tank that won't eat if anyone else buy me feeds them. Fortunately I've never gone away from them longer than 4 days otherwise that could be a problem.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

I have to think they have memories. I stated this in a different post, but at one point I had some archers that when I sat down with the newspaper near their tank they would shoot water through an opening in the top at the newspaper and myself until I would get up and feed them. Very entertaining and always amazing to friends that would be over./:'

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

OK, here's my anecdote that for me, says that fish have more intelligence and memory than they are credited with.

Not long after I acquired the first batch of Pandas, and some Pencil Fish to live in the same aquarium, I was feeding live Bloodworm (the usual banquet I give my fish), and one of the Pandas was happily chewing on a Bloodworm, when one of the male Pencil Fish snatched the bloodworm out of the Panda's mouth. The Panda literally had a "Hey? Where did that go?" expression on its face!

Since then, not only has the "mugging victim" taken to sitting on the Bloodworm to stave off future thefts, but has somehow communicated this to the rest of the Pandas, and now they all do it.

7 second memory? I think not!


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I read not long ago about an experiment conducted in a university somewhere in Britain. They put a fish in a net and left it in the tank, it took the fish some time to sort out how to get out of the net, but after several attempts, it made it.

Then, after several months (months!) they put the fish in the net again and left it in the water. The fish recalled the experience of few months (months!) and instanly got out of the net using the same method it did before. They said that it's like a human being recalling something they learnt at the age of 7 at school when they're 40.

I'll try to find a link so you can show your friend.

Okay, the experiment was conducted in the University of Edinburgh by Dr. Culum Brown for his Ph.D.

His homepage is here: http://www.geocities.com/culumbrown/ and you can read his long thesis if you want. You can also search google for his name and fish memory and find more concise description of this.

I once put too powerful of filter in my 20 long and it created a real strong current in one spot. When the cories would cross it early on, they would get spooked, got nuts and then hide. They eventually avoided that spot. I only had the filter on for one week. They continued their avoidance behavior for many months thereafer. Go figure.

Whenever i open the tank cover my paradise fish gets ready to jump out of the tank and when he sees a shrimp, he jumps for it. He will not jump for any of my friends who hold the shrimp, only me.

i had a group of three male angels in a three-foot tank with about 30 cardinals once - anyway, whenever i walked into the room, the angels would come to the front of the tank, ready to be fed. but when my boyfriend, who never fed them, walked in, they would just continue on with their business. however, if he DID open the lid, they would of course expect food - the sound/vibration stimulus of the lid opening was obviously very strong. the cardinals weren't thinking anything, IMO.

The whole "fish only have a 7-second memory" saying actually came from a fact about their attention spans as opposed to memory. The average attention span for most species of fish is about 5-10 seconds, meaning that's how long they can pay attention to any given object (for example if you put your finger on the glass) before they lose interest and swim off.

But somewhere in the course of time, some idiot misinterpreted this fact and thought that it was referring to a fish's memory. The incorrect "fact" spread throughout the world, and became more commonly heard than the true one, because a 7-second memory span is more interesting than a 7-second attention span.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.