True, but I’m sure all to often people may misjudge fish. I keep hearing that each one has its own unique personality, but “they all act the same.” I remember back in the day Oscar’s were really thought to be very aggressive, now for the most part they’re almost community fish. It could be from captive breeding or just more aggressive species to compare to. This goes for others also. I even posted to see how many people had docile, or at least less aggressive dovii or some of the other species and everyone was either too ashamed to admit that they had one or fish really don’t have different personalities. I have seen numerous times some of the most aggressive species dominated by some that were supposed to be less aggressive, I’m not even talking about juveniles but full size or at least of a certain age.
A. Labiatus male in heat.
- Thread starter Captain F Bomb
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Depends on the fish. Looking at big predatory cichlids for example, umbees naturally fill a niche similar to that of snapper where they're essentially a pelagic fish that needs a lot of space and movement. Subsequently they usually don't do as good as they can long term in home aquaria. Dovii on the other hand, you can naturally find a foot and a half long fish in a knee high creek you could jump across. They fill a niche similar to grouper in my opinion, and are more receptive to a relatively sedentary lifestyle/do perfectly fine in tanks long term (I met a guy with a 15 year old male, who was born to a 15 year old father, who was also still alive).
Less of a reach of an example would be marine fish. I personally think half of the marine species that are readily available to people should not be. The majority are due to dietary restrictions or the fact that they are too sensitive to rough handling, but there are evidently a handful that I do not think can have enough space in average home aquaria. Obvious things like larger grouper, batfish, snapper, etc, but most Acanthurus and large angels are the ones that get overlooked by people in my opinion. These are fish that are swimming dozens of miles daily in nature, constantly moving. Obviously most home aquaria or even public aquariums aren't able to provide that sheer amount of space, but I think its safe to say a 6 x 2 foot tank is a bit restrictive for fish like that. Especially given that a majority of them are social or at the very least hold large territories as individuals. I've seen some very healthy Acanthurus live for a very long time given the right care, but these are kept by rare people that spend tens of thousands of dollars to keep that kind of ecosystem healthy and balanced long term. Most "reefers" do not share that sentiment.
Things like gobies and clowns on the other hand are content with more confined spaces and are more forgiving in that regard. We're able to know how long wild clowns live because researchers can go back to the same spot and find the same pair there over the course of multiple decades. With things like that it's more a matter of the system's capabilities for maintaining water quality than actual swimming room.
As for live feeding, I assume you mean feeding fish to other fish. There are some fish that will need live fish. I think if it is out of necessity then it should strictly be by necessity. I mean that as in, people shouldn't go out of their way to be feeding fancy ornamental fish to things when they could just be feeding mosquitofish or something. And I don't mean that as in "prettier fish deserve to live more than the ugly ones", I mean that like you shouldn't be going out of your way to feed off something that is not meant to be food. Sane people don't buy parrots to kill when they want KFC. Most of the time live feeding is for peoples' entertainment, which is inherently cruel. All the videos on reels and such of people dumping hundreds of loaches bettas or goldfish into monster fish tanks to record them getting eaten, putting a live carp or catfish in with piranhas, etc.
Sometimes the live feeding is a form of euthanasia, in which case it can serve a dual purpose of feeding a fish that can or needs to eat live, while killing fish that would not have otherwise had a good quality of life. I do however think that euthanizing otherwise healthy fish that either A. the breeder is too lazy to rehome or B. simply do not have desirable traits is cruel because in the case of A, if they cannot provide for the lives they created they shouldn't be doing it in the first place, and for B they should try to find homes with people who would appreciate them more, however that loops back to the argument against A because if you're concerned about the market flooding with unwanted animals you should not be making ones you cannot provide for.
Sorry, tangents. Very off topic for the main thread but if you're asking I'll answer truthfully. It is 4 am.
