Anybody else feel bad about culling fish?

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Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Feb 28, 2011
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Indiana USA
I hate it, but I do it. I normally start out by getting a decent amount of fry and then culling the bad ones so I'm left with good stock in the end. If you leave them all in the grow out tank long enough, a lot of the times the good stock will kill off the runts/bad stock, but I like to cull before this happens so that I don't end up with a dead fish in the tank releasing toxins/ammonia.....And it seems more humane to me than letting the runts get picked on until they die.

How does everyone else feel about it?
 
Never had to cull any fish.
I wouldn't have an issue if it was a deformed or unhealthy specimin. Otherwise I would sooner give it away/sell it.

As for fry, I generally leave them with the parents to the point were there is only a few of the healthiest left.

I think quality>quantity.
 
If I bred my own, I'd do the same. I think that's the best way to go about it.

But I don't breed. So I buy a handfull of fry, and cull once they start getting big enough to tell the difference between good and bad stock. At that point, the fry normally start to pick on the runts/deformed also.

Reason I brought this up is I culled some with deformed spines and really sunken looking guts that were getting shredded by the rest of the healthy juvies last night. And I always feel bad about doing it, but I know I should.
 
Hello; Culling is a part of the hobby. Either you do it or someone else does it before the fish get to the LFS. If you breed and raise enough fry you wil be faced with this decision. Either cull undesireable individuals or try to find a way to house them. I have tried it both ways and tended to let them live out their lives if they could function at a reasonable level. I was unable to give them away if they had deformities.
 
If I ever get a breeding pair of Jewels, I will have to do something with all the fry. I don't have room to keep an extra tank for raising fry. I probably will end up feeding some to my Jaguar hybrid. But I've never actually had a breeding pair so I'm not sure how I would do it. Maybe sometime I might get a chance to find out.
 
I have marbled cons that produce fry every 3 weeks or so. I grow them out, give the others away, probably keep a couple that i like then feed the other to my oscars.


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Imo culling sucks, I hate it. But I have done it to both fry and sub adult fish. It really does suck. But like was stated, it is part of the hobby. In nature, the bad ones wouldent last anyway, but, a lot of us don't have something "culling" and feeding on the fry in our tanks. I find, they make very nice, inexpesive feeders. And I try to use the fry I'm culling to prime another pair for a spawn, so it all comes back around.

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Culling is a nescessary evil as there are not predators in our grow out tanks as there would be in nature to "handle'it. That being said I do kind of hate and actually have a mad deformed Blue Angelfish in one of my tanks just because i could not kill him, his body and fins are bent the wrong way but he was one of the quickest growing and spunky from that spawn... so i kept him... still going strong and will be with me for life!
 
Is it cold and heartless to take the fry from someone else's tank? My husband took over my 30 and put platies in it. I kind of see them as beginner fish/feeders for my jag. All he did was set up an arrangement I'd thought of trying before. Trouble is, I don't know how he will take to his "pets" being food for my monster.
 
Hello; Perhaps he will feel he same as you would if he fed your jag to a cat. Are not his pets similar to him as yours are to you?
 
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