I watched the documentary Blackfish awhile back and if you haven't seen it give it a watch. Basically its about how SeaWorld keeps their orcas in toxic living conditions. It got me thinking about how well we treat our fish.
I've seen a breeder who keeps his pairs of German blue rams in a 5 gal tank for life. There's a guy who breeds red terrors in what looks like a 29/30 gal. There are FH breeders who breed large FHs in divided 55/40. That's only 24”/18" of living space. These are breeders who always have tons of fry for sale on a regular basis.
Yes their water may be pristine, they eat the best food but what quality of life do those fish have? Their living quarters reminds me of puppy mills or even in the olden days when tigers an other large animals were kept in cages not much larger than themselves. All they do is pace back and forth.
Which brings me to bare bottom / no decorations in a tank. I'm sure fish need some kind of "enrichment" in their life. Which is why tigers, lions, bears, etc have toys, have to look for their food or some other kind of activity. Something to keep the mind going. It's fairly common to hear of people who have wet pets, fish that live solo in a tank, which are personable and usually aggressive (glass bangers). I wonder if this is a product of living in solitary confinement with nothing to interact with.
I'm not trying to attack anyones way of fish keeping but rather just have an educated discussion about the subject.
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I've seen a breeder who keeps his pairs of German blue rams in a 5 gal tank for life. There's a guy who breeds red terrors in what looks like a 29/30 gal. There are FH breeders who breed large FHs in divided 55/40. That's only 24”/18" of living space. These are breeders who always have tons of fry for sale on a regular basis.
Yes their water may be pristine, they eat the best food but what quality of life do those fish have? Their living quarters reminds me of puppy mills or even in the olden days when tigers an other large animals were kept in cages not much larger than themselves. All they do is pace back and forth.
Which brings me to bare bottom / no decorations in a tank. I'm sure fish need some kind of "enrichment" in their life. Which is why tigers, lions, bears, etc have toys, have to look for their food or some other kind of activity. Something to keep the mind going. It's fairly common to hear of people who have wet pets, fish that live solo in a tank, which are personable and usually aggressive (glass bangers). I wonder if this is a product of living in solitary confinement with nothing to interact with.
I'm not trying to attack anyones way of fish keeping but rather just have an educated discussion about the subject.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App