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I've had a reasonable variety of fish now and from what I have had the two smartest are bettas and dwarf puffers. By smartest I mean most responsive to either whats going on inside or outside of the tank.

The smartest fish I've met is a specific blue gill. I was fishin on the 4th of July. I was catchin blue gills like crazy. There was this one blue gill who was always in the same spot. It would run from there on occassions but always come back. I would dangle my worm in front of it and it would nip pieces off it and not try to take the whole thing. I was getting frustrated. I reeled the worm in... tossed it somewhere else and boom, I caught another one. I'd toss it back near the "smart one" and it would do the same thing. =/ After about half an hour, I gave up. He was just too smart.

My smartest fish so far was the Midas cichlid I used to have. She'd examine any new fish added to the tank. She'd examine all nooks and crannys to see if she could fit through any holes made by the decor, and she loved looking at the light on the heater. She'd follow me from one end of the tank to another, but she was wary of strangers.

Not long after I first got her at ~2-3" I had her in a tank with larger oscars. I got some rosy red feeders for them and the oscars were constantly swimming after then trying to catch them but they were having a lot of trouble doing so. The little midas started swimming with the feeders up and down in one of the corners. For a few minutes, I thought that she thought she was a rosy red and was quite disappointed as I'd heard so much about their aggression (I hadn't been in the hobby very long at this time). Well, she swam with them for a good 5 minutes, and then all of a sudden on a trip up the tank she jerked over and swallowed one of the rosy reds. I couldn't help getting a kick out of that...It was as if she was making friends with them to earn their trust, only to get close enough to eat them.

Anyway, she was the most intelligent, owner responsive fish I've owned to date.

Jason

out of all the fishes i have had, i would have to say my apollo shark is pretty darn smart. If im feeding my bottom dwellers sinking pellets, he will wait at the bottom for them. If im feeding flakes he will snatch up what he can and then wait by the filter for the excess to come to him. If im holding pellets or something in my hand and moving from side to side trying to get clear of him to drop them to my bottom feeders, he wont stop following my hand until i release the food.

My female Jack Dempsey is the smartest fish I've personally ever seen. She know who I am and what I'm doing at all times. It's impossible to net her. She always knows if its food time. She protects her babies with ferosciousness (sp?) and keeps tabs on all of them. She hates strangers. She also may be insane. She tried to take down a human hand (mine) during a water change. There was fry in the tank at the time of course tho.

I think of all my fish the smartest are the Angelfish by far, and the rainbowfish. I am working on teaching my large alpha male rainbow to do tricks. So far so good! And my Angelfish- Sneaky Pete, well if he were any more responsive to what goes on outside the tank, I would have to get him a leash and rename him rover!
He will watch every thing I do outside the tank, and he does this little dance for food. If I am sitting in my lazyboy eating, he will also dance for food!



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