Enrichment, enrichment, enrichment.
- Thread starter Randys
- Start date
Interesting study.
I've always thought keeping fish like bottom hugging sand dwellers, and digging cichlids (especially earth eaters like Geophagines, Cribroheros, and Thorichthys, or African earth eaters like Fossorochromis, or Taeniolethrinops) in tanks without sand (or worse bare bottom) counterproductive.
^ This, absolutely. Either choose fish that suit the tank environment you want to have...or set up a tank to suit the fish you want to keep.
Simple, for most people...and yet so often ignored while worrying about 1-degree temperature differentials or 0.1 pH changes.
Simple, for most people...and yet so often ignored while worrying about 1-degree temperature differentials or 0.1 pH changes.
It’s an interesting concept. Enriching the life of a creature which is simply programmed to survive. It takes a bit more anthropomorphism than I can muster and at its core I think the idea is less about appropriate care and more about “engaging with” your fish.
I do get behind the idea (with a few exceptions, ie begging behavior) that if a fish isn’t behaving “normally” or “approximately as it would in the wild” than there is an issue with its care- whether that be improper husbandry or lack of appropriate environmental considerations and conditions.
I do get behind the idea (with a few exceptions, ie begging behavior) that if a fish isn’t behaving “normally” or “approximately as it would in the wild” than there is an issue with its care- whether that be improper husbandry or lack of appropriate environmental considerations and conditions.
Agree completely. In fact, the use of the word "enrichment" is, IMHO, not really appropriate. It does indeed imply a level of anthropomorphism which is in itself disturbing.
I think that "stimulation" might be better. Yes, a fish is simply programmed to survive; programmed to find and eat food for survival, and also to escape and evade predators and to procreate. Whether learned or instinctive, these behaviours are rooted in the brain; is it unrealistic to claim that the brain needs "exercise" just as other parts of the body? Simply swimming around a piece of decor, perhaps inspecting it for possible food items, perhaps using it to avoid contact with potentially aggressive tankmates...these seem to my layman's mind to be mental exercises at the fish level. It's difficult to see how they could be anything other than beneficial. Use it or lose it.
I get the impression that the majority of aquarium fish, especially the so-called "wet pets" like large cichlids, catfish, etc., are poorly nourished, overweight, out-of-shape aquatic couch potatoes. And I'll bet that the ones kept alone, in bare-bottomed barren tanks, are also not the Einsteins of their respective species either. Totally unsurprising to read serious studies indicating that on top of all those strikes against them, they also are less healthy and resilient to disease than their more intellectual counterparts.
