Can bn plecos (or any catfish) be trained?

[moonbunny]

Just curious...

Does anyone know of an incidence of bn plecos or any kind of catfish being trained (i.e. for feeding time, or even for tricks?) It seems as if nearly all other fish are able to be trained (goldfish, bettas, puffers, etc.) to some extent, but I've never heard of bn plecos or any other of these gentle, shy fish being trained to respond to a stimuli, such as food (such as treats, like shrimp pellets.)

It'll be interesting to hear back from anyone on this
Thanks!
Moonbunny

[andywoolloo]

My bristlenoses know when I am going to put in their veg an fruit. They come and line up in the front portion
of the around tank 20 mins before. I add it right before lights out and boy do they know.
It's pretty cool to see them all lined up.

They are so tame they climb up and onto the long skewer of fruit and veg as I enter it into the tank. They get on it as it goes into the water. Not always but sometimes.

[DJ-don]

My bristlenoses know when I am going to put in their veg an fruit. They come and line up in the front portion
of the around tank 20 mins before. I add it right before lights out and boy do they know.
It's pretty cool to see them all lined up.

They are so tame they climb up and onto the long skewer of fruit and veg as I enter it into the tank. They get on it as it goes into the water. Not always but sometimes.

personally if they dont do this all the time, i think its just instinct on what to do.

[andywoolloo]

yeah I am not saying they are trained other then they know what time of day is feeding time.

[Marc van Arc]

I've read of a study (long ago) about training ictalurids. But don't ask me for details.

[MatsP]

I would say that catfish belonging to the more intelligent of fishes can be trained. Plecos can certainly learn to invert to get to flake food at the surface.

Given enough patience, I'm sure they can be trained to do more advanced tricks. But they are not dogs...

--
Mats

[Mike_Noren]

It seems as if nearly all other fish are able to be trained (goldfish

If you're thinking of the video which went around the net about a year ago with trained goldfish doing synchronous-swimming in formation, they allegedly had magnets surgically implanted into their body cavities, and were controlled using magnets underneath the tray they were swimming in.

That said I'm sure bristlenoses can be taught simple tricks such as to surface and allow touching. I have personally trained a goby to swim up into the shallow water on top of a powerhead to be hand-fed (because otherwise the other fish would steal the food), and many zoos teach stingrays to swim to the surface and be petted to get food, and catfish certainly are no less able to learn than those.

[Marc van Arc]

I've read of a study (long ago) about training ictalurids. But don't ask me for details.

I checked the above: a gentleman called Herter trained a pair of ictalurids (no species mentioned) named Adam & Eve to leave their shelter and look for food by calling their names. Apparently Eve needed only 30 trainings; Adam 170......
I can't find anything about this on the net; source is http://www.planetcatfish.com/books/book ... t+Aquarium (pages 41-42).

[tank11]

sure they can be trained, just feed them tap on the glass and they will come running from all over.. there hard to teach them to line up and beg ...

[moonbunny]

This is pretty great news! Thank you!

It'll be a little bit before I can get my bn pleco Minnie some friends (really, I've already started the process over at Aquabid to find her some young bn pleco females for tankmates and am just waiting to find out from whence they'll come,) and I was thinking that with all the space in the new tank and all (true, it is the worst designed tank in the world, the American 50 gallon, in terms of surface area--but there will be a Rena XP3 and a powerful lot of airstones to help with gas exchange) it would give us time to bond (esp. as the new fish will be quarrantined for the obligatory 4-6 weeks.)

She already comes for food, or else lets me know when she wants fed by swimmng as loudly as a fish can, lol (she is a good one.) I'm just thinking like you guys--these cats have a long life span and are one of the more intelligent fish out there...what would life be like if she learned to play games...would she be happier? I realize that's probably more than a little anthropomorphism...but maybe not

I had a goldfish (the 11-cent kind,) at least 4 years back, who grew to an astounding 12-14" over 10 years before I had to adopt her out to a nursery with a 500 gallon pond for her, stocked with 6 other goldfish or koi and a turtle as friends. She knew when it was food time and "popped" her lips when she was hungry in between. Even on first meetings she knew who she liked and didn't like (she'd smack her tail and splash anyone she didn't like, namely and aunt of mine, which I thought was incredibly good taste on her part!) Sweetie being so engaged led me to think about Minnie and things that cats like her might do in the wild in the course of a day--looking for food, riding waves, ducking and hiding, all dimensions of social interaction, even playing

So now with the esteemed blessings/opinions of all of you, and thinking it just may be possible, I think Minnie and I will try the "tap and feed" method and maybe work with a few other cues...maybe I'll up the ante and give her parts of shrimp pellets as treats

Wow! There's so much potential there! (((Thanks guys!)))

(...now I'm off to read the article linked above...maybe even pull out some Desmond Morris books and see if they say anything about intrinsic training of fish within their own schoals...)

[L number Banana]

Hi Moonbunny,
Nice to hear that Minnie is doing well. With regards to training, I've been trained to beware of Desmond Morris, I saw the TV special he did about men and women etc and I'll flip water at him if I ever see him.

On the highly intelligent side, read all the David Attenborough books you can get your hands on - oh my, what an amazing read and a fun read. I just received the links for his new series on BBC4. Now there's a guy that knows nature! Totally cool guy.

Konrad Lorenz is an animal behavior guy too but a HIGHLY controversial character. However if you can find any of his books, it really shows the intelligence of birds. Fish are surely more intelligent than any of us know, maybe as humans we haven't the brains yet to figure out what 'fish intelligence' means

My fish are currently training me.

[bronzefry]

Corydoras spp. seem to be more "trainable" than some other catfish species. I have a 75 gallon tank of Cories that like to come to the surface for a "hand-feeding" of freeze-dried tubifex.
Amanda

[DJ-don]

like i said before idon think fishh have that mode of obeying in there brains yet so its not really training the fish its more on there instinct