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I was thinking about this earlier and it a question occured to me about fish intelligence. We all know that fish do not have a 30 second memory , but which are the most intelligent fish. A few people I know say Cichlids or Catfish.

I would like your opinions on this matter.

The Angel fish at work seems to be the most intelligent fish, then the gourami, then the New Guinea Rainbow fish.

The Angel always goes to the top of the tank if anyone approaches, but if I go over (I feed them all), she does this sort of excited sort of tail flicking and swims back and forth quickley.

If I hold a flake just above the water she'll poke her nose out and grab the food.

The Gourami will hide most of the time at the back of the tank and only come over when I look into the tank. When he is coming over to feed he usually chases off the other fish (except the Angel).

Let me know

Work Aquarium 110L
(not my choice of fish but look after)
2 New Guinea Rainbows
1 Angel (needs to be moved before it gets big and eats tetras)
6 Neon Tetras
3 guppies
4 Corrie
4 small Golden Chinese algae eaters (need bigger home soon)
1 Red Dwarf Gourami

well, I have a pair of oscars, both female, they sure are intelligent but they can't seem to tell which one is male or female.They lay eggs and do the love dance all the time, but the eggs never hatch.Hands down oscar is pretty smart, but smartness can also be determine by their parents, just like human is.

Last edited by Trojan_man at 31-Mar-2005 00:52

Out of all our fish I'd have to say the oscars

I think it also depends on the level of interaction with your fish. If you leave a catfish in its tank, and just leave food after lights out, its not gonna recognize the hand that feeds it.

But i've had one hoplo catfish, and i fed it every single day by using some frozen bloodworms, and i'll hold the frozen worms in my fingers inside the tank. After a while, my hoplo recognized those "strange lil things holding food for me" *aka my fingers*, and pretty soon, it would swim up to me, and nibble at my fingers.

I agree. Catfish are among the dumbest of fish--and I'm a catfish fan.

Polypterids and like species are also, IME, not so smart; rather, they have very fine tuned instincts. This applies to livebearers and belontid fishes as well.

I believe the aforementioned cichlids, mainly new world species, are quite intelligent. A particularly rambunxious jag at work has figured out how to overturn the frozen food feeder to get to the goods. Certain oscars are reported to recognize themselves when presented with a mirror, but I have my doubts on this. I don't find puffers particularly intelligent myself--all they do is eat, excrete and search for another meal.

I'm surprised people are saying catfish. In my opinion, they are some of the least intelligent fish out there. Catfish are basically nothing more than mouths, muscle, and fins.

I consider fish like Perciforms and Polypterids to be very intelligent fish based on their behavior.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

oscars and other cichlids seem to be fairly intellagent my oscar seems to know when feeding time is (around 9) cus around then he always hangs up toward the top of my tank.. also paradise fish seem smart... mine jumps through hoops cus i trained it to sign of smartness (it can be trained..)

If you can call them fish, Octopus hands down are the smartest with the cuddle fish at close second.

But as far as "real" fish goes I'd have to say puffers in general are extremely intelligent. Some more than others but the smartest of the species far exceeds any cichlid.

They have been labeled as aqua-dogs. And this from a cichlid fan.