Fish Enrichment?

[TextsFromParrots]

I really can't believe i'm writing that. I love spike, seriously. He is the niftiest dang fish I have ever seen, but there are a pile of things that I've learned about caring for a puffer fish in the last month.

-He will eat dried meal worms, but the only other things he'll eat are live food which means I absolutely have to have a second tank to keep his food in. (Ghost shrimp, snails, etc)
-He is a sociopath, if I put in more food than he can eat, he will kill everything once he's full. Not to eat, just to maim.
-Spike knows how to beg! The moment I come home he starts leaping up and trying to get my attention to be fed, it's freaking adorable
-He'll also jump for meal worms, if I hold one up he'll jump out of the water to snag it.

And the problem thing is, he's bored. i have varying heights in the tank with fake plants, places to hide, but he keeps swimming up and down the glass in his spare time which apparently means he's bored. What set ups have people used with their puffers?

 

[Somebirdie]

Weird suggestion, but could you make an acrylic maze of some sort to find shrimp in?

Even if it were just square boxes inside each other with different sized holes in differnt areas

Moving ornaments like the bubble ones that take a few seconds too build up?

Different textured piles of substrate to move around or dig in? A mates flowerhorn loves moving different types of pebbles around into neat piles


Edit: or even an acrylic maze where he needs to wait for the shrimp to come out themselves, so its like hunting but made harder?

 

[Mirantha]

This sounds really funny, but we have an Oscar fish named "Ellie" who is really personable & smart for a fish, we love her

Anyway, she always seems interested in whatever is going on outside the tank, she definitely recognizes "her people", and if something scares her (for example a stranger too close to her tank or touching it ) she "faints" .... goes to bottom of tank and sorta falls over - scared me TO DEATH when I first saw that, but evidently it is an "Oscar Thing", they are kinda dramatic She has gotten to be a big, brave girl now, so it doesn't happen very often anymore .

As far as enrichment, my 2 daughters put stuff by her tank "for her to look at" all the time - stuff that changes colors, glows, or has led lights... They also show her "screensavers" of oceans & other fishies . I truly don't know how much of an impact this has on her overall quality of life, but must admit she does seem "interested" sometimes! Oh & haven't tried this yet, but there are claims that Oscars like "floatie toys", like a ping pong ball to push around...

Don't know how much of this applies to Spike, but just wanted to let you know that I agree that some fish can be really personable little buggers!!

This is Ellie when she was younger - she is much bigger (about 5") now. You REEEEEEAAAAALLLLY have to watch your fingers when you feed her, she is WAY too enthusiastic, lol.

 

[Saemma]

Carole would probably have some great ideas. Your Puffer Boy sounds kind of gruesome.

 

[Mirantha]

Oh & I have also heard of "clicker training" fish, although instead of using a clicker as a bridge (can't really 'hear' it), they use a visual bridge - usually a small led flashlight... Quick blink of light instead of a "click".

 

[Mizzely]

What about frozen foods? I feed frozen foods at least once a week, and my fish enjoy trying to rip the food out of the frozen block

I wonder if you could somehow get a buffet ball type thing for fish

 

[bubblelady]

Google fish doing tricks and goldfish doing tricks. There are LOTS of videos of trained fish on YouTube. I can just see it all now. Soon you'll be doing texts from fish

 

[TextsFromParrots]

Spike seriously is a sociopath, I feel bad when I have to give him food sometimes. Those are some great ideas, maybe I can get a buffet ball and put his snails in it or shrimp so he has to work to get them or some such.

On another note, I got another fish today. I have a three gallon tank for his victims...ahhh food I mean, and I had to move it downstairs for convenience sake. So I wanted to have a friendly face in the midst of the victims, and I saw a lovely little betta at the fish store. So now I have twin tail that needs a name.

 

[Danita]

This thread needs a GRAPHIC warning

 

[TextsFromParrots]

Hey hey hey, I haven't shown video of him at his meals! So really, it's not THAT graphic. Spike just has issues.

 

[bubblelady]

Hey hey hey, I haven't shown video of him at his meals! So really, it's not THAT graphic. Spike just has issues.

Well, you were the one who named him Spike. He's just living up to his name. And you could get another beta and put a glass divider in and have a house full of sociopaths.

 

[Saemma]

Spike seriously is a sociopath, I feel bad when I have to give him food sometimes. Those are some great ideas, maybe I can get a buffet ball and put his snails in it or shrimp so he has to work to get them or some such.

On another note, I got another fish today. I have a three gallon tank for his victims...ahhh food I mean, and I had to move it downstairs for convenience sake. So I wanted to have a friendly face in the midst of the victims, and I saw a lovely little betta at the fish store. So now I have twin tail that needs a name.

I think you're pretty gruesome too. You're *enabling* Spike's gruesomeness. Should have called him Hannibal and you can be his Lecter.

 

[TextsFromParrots]

He won't eat most dried/frozen foods, he prefers live prey. Meal worms are the only things he'll eat that's not live and wriggling. So I'm not enabling.

 

[bubblelady]

I had a beta that would only eat live, too. He was happy with freeze dried till I gave him live brine shrimp. Once. He demanded live from then on. He really liked live tubifex worms, too. If I tried to feed him brine shrimp that had died even 2 or 3 hours earlier, he would spit them out with great disdain...shoot them half way across the tank. Definitely anti social, too!

 

[Sadieladie1994]

Oh & I have also heard of "clicker training" fish, although instead of using a clicker as a bridge (can't really 'hear' it), they use a visual bridge - usually a small led flashlight... Quick blink of light instead of a "click".

They can also hear a bell underwater. •Talk about moving slow in training, it is even slower with fish and their memory span about 3 seconds.

 

[Sadieladie1994]

I think you're pretty gruesome too. You're *enabling* Spike's gruesomeness. Should have called him Hannibal and you can be his Lecter.

Don't ever let your bird see a meal worm or grub. •They do eat insects and the kind of like these guys. •I was feeding the sugar gliders and had the food in a dish (they love meal worms) when my macaw looked and immediately grabbed one and chomped it down. •I nearly fell off the chair when he then responded MMMMMmmm.

 

[TextsFromParrots]

Their memory exceeds 3 seconds, that's just a myth. Mythbusters disproved it.

 

[bubblelady]

Don't ever let your bird see a meal worm or grub. •They do eat insects and the kind of like these guys. •I was feeding the sugar gliders and had the food in a dish (they love meal worms) when my macaw looked and immediately grabbed one and chomped it down. •I nearly fell off the chair when he then responded MMMMMmmm.

Guy at the pet store gave me some live meal worms for my lovie once. Put one in his dish. He started to grab it. It moved. He FREAKED! End of moving food in this house. Except for the fish.

 

[Sadieladie1994]

Their memory exceeds 3 seconds, that's just a myth. Mythbusters disproved it.

You mean this? ••Three-second memory myth: Fish can remember for up to five months | Mail Online
••Realy though a little more effort is needed. •Training them to go through hoops is one of the easier tricks to teach. •A figure 8 takes just a bit more.They always fascinated me when they would come up to the glass and seem like they were watching. •But again it could have been association that food was coming! •Works for me.

 

[Laurul Feather Cat]

I recently discovered a bunch of fleas in my backyard that got into my birdroom. I was sitting in the chair playing bowl hunt with Sunny when a big, fat flea ran across my fingers. Sunshine reached out like lightening and plucked that flea off my finger and I heard its chitin snap when she got it between her beak halves and then she swallowed it. I freaked. Called the vet, etc. Got a lecture about in the wild, all birds eat some insects, especially the type that live on birds when they groom they remove them, etc,etc... Dr Stern suggested giving hibernating mealworms if I wanted to give live food. I declined, said I would continue to offer small pieces of chicken for protein. Dr Stern just laughed.