Tell us about your fish games

[joannde]

As my husband and I were near the tank today he looked at the 5 platies all in a row and asked me what they were doing. I (straightfaced) answered him "isn't it obvious ? they're playing follow the leader !". They do it alot and its really cute to watch.

The other game is played by my panda cories - its called "bubble wand dive bomb". They go into the bubble wand flow at the top of the tank and swim their little tails off, struggling against the current, until they get to the bubble wand at the bottom. Then they just relax and the bubbles SHOOT them to the top of the tank, where they start the process all over again.

My bettas will play "follow the spoon". When I first brought "Mr Fussy" home he would NOT eat his betta pellets, so I started holding them in place with a white plastic spoon so that they wouldn't get lost and pollute the tank (since I soak the pellets for a couple of minutes first the pellets sometimes sink). Sometimes I do this with Mr Piggy also (when he's not paying attention and can't find the pellet. Now both of them will follow the spoon from either outside or inside the tank LOL

Do your fish play games ? Lets hear 'em !

 

[Elle2]

Everytime I do water tests I scoop out aquarium water in the vials and pour it back in a few times to make sure that there isn't any residual tap water left in them. My platies LOVE to come dance in the water being poured back in. They just dart back and forth through it over and over so now I find myself doing this for them much longer than is necessary to clean the vials.

 

[justrelax]

i have a black angel who likes to have staring contests with me. all four of the angels like to swim up to the glass when i come look in it, but he's the only one who will stay right in one spot and stare me down until i leave. one night my wife made the staring contest comment so i thought i would see if i could win. appearantly he is quite strong willed because to this day i always leave the glass first!

 

[confusion]

I have some zebra danios that do some funny things. They are very much into the bubble wand dive bombing as you described - almost exactly. I swear they spend most of the day playing "tag" with each other. They also do a pretty funny thing - one of them will get real close the the ground, and flail its fins madly stirring up the gravel. Then it turns around real quick to see if any food was kicked up and snatches it up, if so. Pretty clever.

 

[tropicfishman]

lol my zebra danios are nuts, they chase each other around in this crazy panic and dart into this hollow plastic cave thing I got from walmart, the other 3 will leave it with no problems, but one just swims around and around and around until about 20 minutes later he finds one of the 4 exits lol my tiger barbs are the best though, they play the follow the leader thing, but the biggest one will laways stop dead in its tracks and let the one behind plow into him, proving once agian that I always buy the fish who aren't quite on track if ya know what I mean lol

 

[joannde]

ROFL this thread is cracking me up ! I feel like we should start producing a television show called "Worlds Funniest Fish" or "Fish are people too"

The tiger barb thing had me laughing so hard my sides hurt. And the angel staring contest was hysterical - I can see it - and I can imagine the angelfish saying "I WON AGAIN ! HA !!" That danio IS very clever - I wonder if that's a natural behavior in the wild ? and Elle, I'm not surprised at all that you've made a toy out of your water param test tubes for your fish !

 

[JeffreyL]

games

Fish play games??!!??!! What a relief!! All this time I thought my girlfriend and I kept picking out fish that were insane or brain damaged. Instead they are 'playful and eccentric'. Hmmmmm. That is what all the relatives say about us, too. Probably means nothing.

I have never had a bubble wand, but our fish do something similar with the flow from the HOB filter. The tank is a 30 gal cube and the flow is rather high. So there is a 'sheet' of water flowing fast down approximately 1/3 of the front. Most of the little darlings spend time surfing in the flow. The neons and black neons will get in formation and try to hold position, swimming like mad, but going nowhere. The champion of the surf is the albino cory, of course. Bodie, named after the last winter olympics, gets in the current and careems all over the tank running into anything or anyone in his way. Hehehehehe.

 

[Musket]

These are all just too cute.
My bettas (both male and female) will "leap". Whenever I put my fingers over their tanks, they will leap up and hit my fingers. Most of the time of course I have something yummy for them there like blood worms, but sometimes it's a piece so spinach or banana. I can just hear them saying... hey "WHAT was THAT?"

 

[FuzzyRag]

My rosey barbs like to follow anyone who walks in front of the aquarium, and they sit in a corner looking somewhat dissappointed when no one will keep walking. My cory cats also seem to think they are rosey barbs sometimes, they school with them for some reason.