Training fish with live maggos?

[Papagena]

Hi!

I have a 200 l tank with 3 fish living in it: An otocinclus, a common
goldfish named Giebel and a pumpkinseed sunfish named Leonardo ( "I'm
the King of the World!"). All three are about 5 years of age. The
otocinclus ( Japie) is quietly swimming around, and hiding behind an
amphora at the bottom of the tank, the other two are sometimes chasing
each other. Especially Leonardo, the sunfish, is fond of live maggots.
These seem not to be the proper food to be used in a feeding wand. Do
you have any other suggestions, since I didn't buy the R2 trainingkit
yet. At this moment I feed both fish live maggots in the morning, and
I try to make them get used to eating from my hand. I noticed already
that working with them on a regular base seems to make them behave
more relaxed during the rest of the day.

I used to work with parrots, where I used my voice as a "bridge". What
do you use as a bridge? A clicker, a light signal or just your voice?

Kind regards,

Papagena.

[Dean Pomerleau]

Papagena,

Welcome!  It sounds like you've got a cool tank, and cool fish!

> Especially Leonardo, the sunfish, is fond of live maggots.
> These seem not to be the proper food to be used in a feeding wand. Do
> you have any other suggestions

Hmmm... The maggots might work, but they may be too big for the feeding wand.  Just about any food will work, as long as it fits in the food chamber.

> What do you use as a bridge? A clicker, a light signal or just your voice?

I personally don't use any bridge - the equipment itself serves as the cue. E.g. when I put the hoop or soccer goal in the tank, my fish do the trick automatically.  But I know several people have used a flashlight as a bridge to cue their fish to perform a behavior.

Good luck, and let us know if you get an R2 kit!

--Dean

---------------------------------------
Dean Pomerleau
Founder & Chief Fish Trainer
Fish School, Inc.

[Helix Fairweather]

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009, Dean Pomerleau wrote:

>> What do you use as a bridge? A clicker, a light signal or just your voice?
>
> I personally don't use any bridge - the equipment itself serves as the cue.

Small adjustment: the bridge and the cue are two different things. The
bridge, also known as an event marker, is a conditiond reinforcer (which
means it's not a "natural" reinforcer) that is used to mark the exact
moment of meeting criterion. It is used because it's awkward to try and
give a primary reinforcer at the exact instant of correct performance.
Using a marker can speed up your training tremendously. And it has been
found (by scientists) that the conditioned reinforcer becomes more
powerful than the primary reinforcer.

Cue: is the "name" we give to the behavior. It can be verbal, hand, light,
sound, the sight of the prop. If you set it up so that the sight of the
prop is the cue to do the behavior, you limit your flexibility for
performance. In order to NOT have the animal do the behavior, you would
have to remove the prop.

Having behaviors on cue means that you can make behavior chains, such as
hoop - weave poles- chimney AND you can do those in any order based on how
you give the cues. You can teach discriminations - put two hoops in the
water and teach the fish a cue for left-hoop and another cue for
right-hoop for example.

Helix Fairweather
--

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[nina hollenberg]

Hello,  Dean and Helix!

Do you use a cue, then? and what type of cue?  When I trained my parrots I used for instance commands like "Step up",  "turn around", the latter replaced by a finger cue etc. As a bridge to mark the moment that the bird could expect the reward, I used "Good bird", like I used a clicker when training a dog or a rabbit. How well do fish hear? Would they hear a clicker? Under water, humans do hear a whistle signal, which is also used with dolphins. I understood that fish don't have ears, but perceive sounds with their side stripes. But how do they hear them? I know that knocking against the glass of the tank is irritating for them, how about whistling or clicking sounds?

Kind regards, Papagena.

2009/10/12 Helix Fairweather <dogte...@aracnet.com>

[mary]

. And it has been
> found (by scientists) that the conditioned reinforcer becomes more
> powerful than the primary reinforcer.
>

> Helix Fairweather
> --
>

Helix,

Do you know who's doing work on this, or have any references to
articles or journal studies? Just wanting to read up some more on
this.

thanks,

Mary

[Helix Fairweather]

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009, nina hollenberg wrote:

> Hello, Dean and Helix!
> Do you use a cue, then? and what type of cue? When I trained my parrots I

When I was training Cartman, I had just started adding cues to his
behaviors. I used a different color flash of light for a cue.

> used for instance commands like "Step up", "turn around", the latter
> replaced by a finger cue etc. As a bridge to mark the moment that the bird
> could expect the reward, I used "Good bird", like I used a clicker when
> training a dog or a rabbit. How well do fish hear? Would they hear a
> clicker? Under water, humans do hear a whistle signal, which is also used

I used a light flash as the marker (bridge) because I was not sure if the
clicker could be heard underwater or not. The marine mammal trainers use a
whistle which is heard under water easily.

Karen Pryor used a finger splash in the water as a marker with her
Cichlid.

Helix

[nina hollenberg]

And it has been found (by scientists) that the conditioned reinforcer becomes more
> powerful than the primary reinforcer.
>

Yes, this is what I also found. My first lessons in animal training I got from a veterinarian who used mainly secondary reinforcers "Good Bird!". Then I attended workshops with people such as Susan Friedman and Barbara Heidenreich ( bird trainers), who used primary reinforcers with a vocal ( secundary) reinforcer as bridge. I discovered that very soon the "Good Bird!" was also sufficient, like in the past my horse responded well to patting his neck during a training. He knew that after training dinner was waiting for him.

 For me it's very interesting to try these things with fish now, after working with mammals and birds for several years.

2009/10/13 mary <mehh...@gmail.com>