0morrokh

Sorry I haven't been on much. The end of the trimester is in 2 weeks and the teachers are all going into a bit of a panic.

Anyway, for the past couple days I've been working on my betta training experiment. I'm impressed with how quickly she's learned, even after the number of animals I've worked with...she's a much better learner than a lot of what we would tend to think of as more intelligent animals. I've taught her to 'target'-I made a target out of one of those wood chopsticks you get at Chinese restaurants, and tied some string around one of the ends. She has to touch the end of the chopstick, under the string, to get food. Now we're working on swimming through a hoop (which is a hair binder tied on a string) to the target. I actually didn't get to work with her today as I was busy all day, but tomorrow or the next day I want to see if I can get her swimming through the hoop without the target.

I'll try to get some pics or vids of her so you guys can see how she's doing.

And no she still isn't named. I've gotten a few ideas but none of them have 'clicked.'

MissMTS

That is so interesting! I didn't know that bettas could be trained.

COBettaCouple

They're capable of learning quite a lot of tricks. Very intelligent fish. Good job on training your new girl, Omorrokh!

capekate

Hi Omorrokh.
I think that is fantastic! Please... send youtube video when you can, Id love it see it.. as Im sure everyone else would too!

Now... can you come and teach my ahhh.. not so bright males that the food is above their noses? hehehe.... my females are much more smarter than the guys! lol...

~ kate

luna

chickadee

I think that is so neat! I would love to do something like that. I think that if I get another betta I have decided that I want to try to get another female like Misty was but very young like the ones I have seen lately on the forum. Of course it will depend if I can find one at Miami Aquariums or online.

Rose

0morrokh

Yeah I might need to set up a youtube account just for this. Goldies definately have way more than a 3 second memory. There's a lot of fish that are extremely intelligent. I suppose it's hard to realize just how smart they are due to how different fish are from us.

You know, I bet you could train any of your bettas tricks, even if they're older. They have a good relationship with you which I think is one of the biggest factors in how well an animal works with you. As long as they'll hand feed it's really easy to teach them to do something to get food...you can start with having them touch your finger for food (which they'll probably do anyway when you stick your finger in the tank). If you can teach a fish to swim to a target then you can get them to do almost anything.

So anyway, I had her swimming through my hair binder hoop as well as jumping out of the water (wasn't going to do that originally, but she gets bored just swimming back and forth. The tank is well sealed so no worries of her jumping out.) My trouble now is getting her to swim through it without the target. It was really funny, she'd be swimming practically in circles around the hoop but wouldn't go through until she saw the target on the other side. Whatever, we're still working on it. This was only like her 4th day of training so no need to rush her.

Tomorrow I think I'll try to incorporate other obstacles to go into/through so she doesn't get bored. Not sure yet what exactly they'll be.

EDIT: still trying to decide her name but I did think of 'chispa' which means spark. I think it suits her but waiting to see if I think of anything else.

COBettaCouple

It's amazing how they learn things. Our Bettas learned to recognize certain things that we would do in the morning before feeding them. Every one of them would be dancing up a storm and Angel would be doing her 'feed me' routine way before the food came out. They've learned other things, even without training and I think you show how some training can really go far with them.

Allie

Call her Peppermint Patty...she look like a candy cane...or call her Candy?

Narcicius

Wow I can't wait to see some videos of this one, I love bettas and now they even cooler now.

Narcicius

BTW Omorrokh what is on your avatar?

Blub

aprilrain85

How did you get them to start feeding from your hand? I would love to train Geppetto! Right now he watches me put his pellets in, but only eats once they are all there and my hand is away from his tank. Any suggestions?

chickadee

Place your hand flat on the front of his tank and talk to him softly and when he gets used to the sound of your voice and begins to come to the front of the tank and listen to you, you will know that he is getting used to you. Then little by little at meal times talk to him when you put the food into the tank. Then after a while leave the lid open when you feed him and he will get used to it. Then put your finger in the water with the pellet and just do not move that finger for anything until he has eaten that pellet. If you move it, the whole thing is over as it will scare him. Then little by little put the finger in first and then the food with the other hand. Soon he will get to know that the finger means food is coming and soon he will come around the finger for food especially if you start to drop the food close to the finger. But do not move your finger until he starts to come up to the finger to eat. Then you can start to put a small piece of food on your fingertip and see if he will eat off of the fingertip. But it takes time and patience with a timid little betta like Geppetto. It is very worth it though. And think of all the quality time you will have with him while you are training him. Just do not get discouraged. It really does not take that long if you are patient.

Rose

COBettaCouple

Yea, Rose is right. It's all kind of a gradual thing. Our little Sweetie was all tore up and missing fins with deep stress lines and no color when we got her. She'd dart into hiding if you got close. Bit by bit she learned we were safe and we did like Rose advises. Now she's our most active little one with a beautiful rainbow metallic color who's always swimming back & forth at the front of her tank, trying to get attention and she happily plays 'follow the finger' and 'nip the finger'.

Narcicius

I can't wait to get a betta tank setup. It just sounds so rewarding to the owner.I can't wait.

aprilrain85

Thanks for the suggestions. He always comes over to say hi when I sit down by him or talk to him. This morning I managed to get him to eat one pellet at a time while my hand was over the tank. You are right - I just need more patience. However, Geppetto is pretty.... timid.... he has an amino shirmp tank mate. I have been afraid that the shrimp would get eaten; however any time Geppetto goes near the shrimp and flares, the shrimp just advances towards Geppetto. As soon as this happens, Geppetto flees. 99% of the time, Geppetto leaves the shrimp alone. Anyway, thanks again for the suggestions.

COBettaCouple

Aww.. he sounds like Teddy Bear. He started out real timid, even though he's the biggest Betta we've seen. Your little guy will lose that in time, attention from you and getting comfortable in his home will build his confidence.

chickadee

One thing to watch with the shrimp, there is a type of shrimp that will go after a betta. They are not sold everywhere and I am not saying that you have one, but since you mentioned that the shrimp advanced on him, you may want to just keep an eye on the thing and if it begins to show any aggression or if your betta shows any torn fins or damage of any type, WATCH the shrimp.

Rose

0morrokh

Like Hatchet said it's my horse-it's a side/front view...his eye is in the middle and his head is facing right.

You've already gotten great tips but I'll add that another thing I like to do to get shy bettas used to my fingers is just sit or stand next to the tank with my hand in the water. If I have a particularly shy one I might get out a book and just sit there reading it, not paying any attention to the betta. Eventually they'll get curious and start approaching your hand.

Ok so the training's going well but I'm starting to run into problems in that she only understands what to do if she sees the target. She will swim through anything to the target but as soon as I take it away she doesn't do anything-because I've taught her the way to get food is to touch the target. So, I'm thinking I might need to retrain her to respond to a stimulus other than the target-something along the lines of clicker training. The idea is that you teach an animal that a certain thing, like a sound or a flash of light, means they did something good. You do that by teaching them that sound/light = food. The advantage of this is that you can select what behavior you want, so if they do something cool then you just have to make the sound/light and they understand that you like what they did and they get a treat for it. I was originally trying to do it without using a "click" but it's not really accomplishing what I want to accomplish so I think I'll start using one (a flash of light works best for fish). It's not really retraining (which would be very difficult), but rather it'll be adding to what she knows. Basically the light will become the reward rather than the food, because she'll learn that the light means I'll give her food. Hopefully that will make it a lot easier to teach her to do things without seeing the target. The target can be used at first to teach the behavior-say it's swimming through a tube-and then I'll start removing the target before she reaches it but flashing the light as she emerges from the tube. This tells her the reward is for swimming through the tube, not just for swimming toward the target (which is where I'm currently getting stuck in her training).

chickadee

LOL ... just so long as she is not getting overfed during her training. It is so easy to get enthusiastic and forget how many times she has had a reward. A sick or overstuffed tummy may be a negative reward.

She is a darling and so smart too. Does she have a name yet? I missed it maybe?

Rose

0morrokh

Don't worry I make sure not to overfeed. That's the one annoying thing about training bettas...you can only do so much cause they can't eat a ton.

For her name I'm thinking tentatively Chispa (which means spark) but still haven't made up my mind for sure....

COBettaCouple

Would a laser pointer help in training?

Blub

aprilrain85

I am thinking that it might be best to stop my training efforts with Geppetto. We got to eating one pellet at a time without him being afraid of my arm over the tank fine. When I started putting the tip of one finger in the tank while dropping the food in he would stare at my finger and flare his gills. He would still eat, but he was acting skiddish and aggressive about it. This morning when I went to feed him, he did the same thing, but spit out the food. This worried me, because normally he is a happy, greedy little eater. After this happening with the first pellet I decided that I might be stressing him out too much. I took my finger out, and fed him his other two pellets. He was facing towards me when he got the third one, and I noticed that he flared up right before eating it.
I feel like I have taught him to fear eating, and that was NOT my purpose. I feel so bad that have been stressing him during meal time - which used to be fun for both of us. So I am going to stop trying to teach Geppetto. He is just to shy and cautious for it.

COBettaCouple

Teddy Bear will flare in a similar way when he sees my finger. They can show all kinds of emotions at meal time. I wouldn't feel bad or worry, but if you feel that changing feeding time would be best for him, then that's cool. He's ok though and maybe he's just getting in touch with his inner Betta fiery-ness.

chickadee

He will be fine I am sure. Damon was my little shy and fearful guy and it took a while for him to get to be my little buddy and when he did it was like he could not get enough of me. When I would go in to take a nap he would settle on the top of the Mag-Float and lay there and just watch until I got up and then we would have quality time for about half an hour and he was a great little friend.

Some of them who may have had a bit of a harder time than others do not warm up as quickly as others. He will come about and then he will probably be a real Mommy's boy.

Rose

COBettaCouple

One thing that helped with Teddy Bear since he was so shy & timid at first was that I put him near the computer so he could see me while I worked on it. Just letting him see me as he wanted during the day helped him get more comfortable with us. And even when he was more timid, we'd just talk to him some every day whether he was up at the front of his tank or not. Now he's not timid and wiggles his body in the Betta dance whenever Stacy talks to him. It took some time, but he got there and so will Geppetto.

0morrokh

Well track season has officially started so I can't promise I'll be on the forum much but I thought I'd give a quick update.

Due to being "busy" I hadn't worked on training her for 4 or 5 days. Tonight I got out the target again and she swam right to it immediately and gave it a good demanding nip. So considering I'd only worked with her for a week or so previously, I'd say that's a pretty good memory-a very good one actually...A lot of animals have good long term memories but tend to forget the little things if they're not repeated every day. I had her swim through the hoop and a tunnel I made by cutting the bottom out of a plastic cup a few times. She was slightly hesitant to go through at first but no major issues.


Yeah anything that stands out can be used as a target. I've seen vids of cats trained to target a laser point. Lasers can actually be better than physical targets in that you don't have to be able to reach the place you want the animal to go to-you just point the light at it.


http://web.archive.org/web/200704081...g.org/link.htm
Idk what's going on with their site, but you should be able to get a banner from this page....

If he's very sensitive, it may be that feeding time is too stressful of a time to get him used to your finger. I would seriously grab a book, set up a chair next to the tank, and sit there reading (or whatever you want to do) with one of your hands hanging in the tank. Just ignore him. Don't worry if he seems agitated or scared at first...he'll eventually realize it's not going to hurt him and it's not going anywhere, so he'll either start nipping at you or just ignore your hand. It's hard for me to know exactly what is going on in his head without knowing him, but it's best if he learns to get along with your fingers.

chickadee

Yes, Geppetto needs some time to get used to that hand in the tank or water changes are going to be horrifying experiences for him. He must have been scared to pieces at one time or another. Some bettas do not travel well...Damon for one and when a betta is that insecure, it is necessary to go slow but to make them get used to you or they cannot be cared for.

I would do just as 0morrokh asked and sit nonthreateningly in front of the tank not paying him any attention. When you have done this for a few minutes with the hand in your lap, then open the lid to the tank and sit for a while longer with no hand in the tank. When he has gotten used to the tank lid being open and settled down and remember you are not paying him a lot of attention... Let him think he is not being watched..then slowly put your hand closest to the tank in the tank and gently into the water. Do not stir the water this time or try to move it more than just to put your hand partially into the water and try to sit still and let him just get to the point of swimming around your hand some with it not moving. Then as time goes on slowly lift the hand directly back out of the tank straight up not toward him. If you do this a little time even 5 minutes every day he will soon realize that hand is not going to eat him or hurty him. Then you can start to make slow movements in the water but very small movements at first. Slowly get to the point where he is able to go about his business with your hand being there. THEN you know he is over this with you. He is remembering something that happened to him before you got him and he needs to get over it.

Please do keep us informed of his progress, but I would suggest starting a new thread as this one belongs to 0morrokh and we should stay on topic.

Rose