Magician Fu Yandong has dazzled audiences with this trick while animal rights activists are outraged over the trick, saying Fu must have fed the fish magnets -- or implanted them in the fish -- so they could be dragged around their tank from underneath.
They say the trick is nothing more than animal cruelty.
The trick -- which you can watch below, involves six fish in a shallow tank on a covered table, who swim in formation at Fu's command.
Fu has refused to reveal the secret.
"My fish," he wrote on his microblog, are "living happily".
But that hasn't satisfied the controversy.
The animal rights people believe the fish are being tortured and if other people try this it will be the end of humanity.
Fu Yandong has based his tricks on the tradition of secrecy in the world of magic and refuses to reveal his methods, so the animal rights groups are unsure if fishes' safety is assured.
But regional broadcaster Hunan Television, which has booked Fu to perform live for its own Lantern Festival special, said on its website that Fu would perform the trick on the show and reveal the secret.
