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I have a lyretail molly who will find a bubble at the surface of the water and she'll catch it in her mouth. She'll swim and spit it out then swim to catch up and grab it again. If it pops before she can get to it she'll make a bubble herself and start the process all over again. I just love to watch her.

I don't know if it's play or not but my bleeding hearts will pair up with a mosquito fish and chase after another tetra or MF. It's never 2 tetras or 2 MF chasing ,it's ALWAYS a mixed pair. They completely ignore the mollies and loach.

Owner of 20g with 7 diamond tetras, 1 mosquito eater,& 1 lyretail molly.

Fish often play with bubbles in an aquarium. In fact, my fish always wait and hover over the bubbler and let themselves float up to the top and then they repeat the process over and over again! My Dwarf Gourami keeps his area neat and clean. He hordes 1/4 of all the freeze dried blood worms into his little corner, and then he takes all the bubbles that float to his area and then spits them out into the other gouramis territory. Then the other gourami gets mad and eats the Dwarfs blood worms before the dwarf knows what hit him. The two play this game for hours until the bloodworms are all gone. Then they explore the tank for more food.

Now the schooling fish seem interesting. The both of them are usually trying to prove to their species that they are the alpha tetra/MF. Also, it could be a territorial problem. If you add more tetras and MFs it would reduce the stress on each tetra. Then again, it could be a friendly game of tag or they could be playing with each other. Fish are truly cool!

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My khuli loaches and SAE do loop de loops for ages. SAE also likes to get high on oxygen by vertically suspending himself upside down and nose first in the airstone; hey man.

I have 4 clown loaches and 4 tiger barbs in a 25 gallon tank.
At any given time two of each group will split off and chase each other around the tank. At first I thought that this was aggressive behavior. I then realized that they take turns chasing each other and sometimes do it in mixed groups. I have the Indy 500 a few times a day in my tank. It is pretty funny to watch.

I don't believe that fish, especially less intelligent ones like livebearers, understand the concept of play in the same sense that mammals and birds do. That said, some fish in captivity will develop repetitive and nonproductive activities that might seem like play to us, but it is unlikely they are doing it because it is "fun".

Play also seems to be linked to the ability to form strong social bonds in addition to general intelligence, which is probably why smart fish like cichlids (which can have more advanced logic abilities than young human children) are not known to exhibit playful behavior either. They tend to form bonds with conspecifics strictly for reproductive purposes.

Much of the behavior in fish we assign the "play" label to is actually just derived from natural, functional behaviors they show in the wild, such as searching for food, establishing social hierarchies, or travelling from one location to another.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Hey natalie, thats the scientific explanation...I guess we just like to see the fish doing their activities, and we call it playing, because they seem soo wacky! Also, i think that fish can have a bit of fun playing in the bubbles! Maybe fish are not as unintelligent as we think?

BTW, what are the "Intelligent Cichlids" that you are talking about? In what aspect are they smarter in? I would really want to get a smart fish!

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