Big Charlie is sooo THICK!

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phreeflow said:
Out of curiosity, is it that way in Australia also, or is it unique to the US? I know the folks in Asia get busted by the fish cops everytime they show pics of their setup lol. Their tanks are jammed pack with fish that look incredibly healthy but it breaks every “rule” of tank size vs fish so they get slammed. I remember back in the days when someone said a mbu puffer needs a 1000 gallon tank and that suddenly became a “rule” that spread across the Internet.
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There’s a reason I have a strong disliking for the city... Australia is slowly becoming like America. We aren’t as bad as Americans when it comes to being a tank sizes, as we tend to have to follow restrictions and outrageous prices. In Australia red tail cats are like 800 so no one buys them without knowing there care. Datnoids are rare round here, although there is a bloke near me who has a bunch who ‘Swam here’.

I am actually amazed on how the Asian folks keep there tanks so well. Even though they are a bit heavy on the stocking, the fish are all happy and healthy.

To be honest, I have never, and will probably never, see a Mbu puffer in the flesh. They just don’t exist here. Pea puffers are $200 a pop.
 
Friller2009 said:
I think this thread needs to be linked

It is clear that 12 Volt Man 12 Volt Man cares for Charlie and knows how Charlie is. You haven’t kept any giant gouramis of Charlie’s size, so who are you to criticise him for how he is kept? Charlie seems very happy and content in his tank.

Also don’t take advice from people on reddit. They’re mostly 20 year olds still living with their parents, with the biggest fish they have ever kept being a platy or bristlenose, yet they think that they know everything. There is a reason the ‘not big enough for a Betta’ Meme exists. If you are going to take advice from someone, take it from real veterans in the aquarium hobby. Take it from people like duanes duanes or Egon Egon , then let them criticise someone not you.
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Link: https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...rami-outgrows-150-gallon.684321/#post-7704435

My criticism for how he is kept stems from what I have seen from giant gouramis in an environment more like how I would keep them (which is at the zoo like I mentioned). Their behavior (as I also previously mentioned) was very different, telling me that Charlie would most likely behave as they did given the same living conditions, and that he isn't necessarily content here just because he may seem so.
I also personally don't think 12 Volt Man actually cares about Charlie's benefit, he seems to just want to have Charlie in the space he has. In my eyes this is a comparable situation to one Stanzzz was in: https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...hes-on-dovii-head.681750/page-12#post-7672010

Not to mention, just because they're on Reddit doesn't mean they are wrong. I'd agree that more than a few people on Reddit are wrong, but certainly not everyone.
Aside from their premise on Charlie needing more space likely being correct for the above reasons, their opinon on environmental enrichment is backed up by the AAZK for example.

There has been some discussion in the aquarium and zoo industry about two aspects of environmental enrichment for fishes: is it effective, and is enrichment simply good husbandry? It is believed that enrichment can be effective for fishes if it is done to accentuate and stimulate natural behaviors. By providing animals with unpredictable changes to their environment that encourage these behaviors, aquarists can better replicate the fishes’ lives as they would be in the wild.

We also believe enrichment involves more than good husbandry techniques. Quoting the AAZK Enrichment Notebook (Stark, 1999), “Environmental or behavioral enrichment is achieved by adding to a captive animal’s environment or by modifying that environment to stimulate behaviors resembling those of a healthy wild animal.” In other words, items are often added or changed in an animal’s habitat for behavioral reasons rather than for physiological needs.
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As much enrichment as Charlie may get from interaction (which I somewhat doubt is sufficient because it is not consistently available like environmental enrichment, and is also much less like what he would do in the wild than environmental enrichment), I have good reason to believe a much larger tank with plenty of environmental enrichment would be needed.

Finally, although I don't believe I necessarily need advice from a veteran, here is some anyway. Stanzzz agrees with my premises for example.

I think this is true of many species.
I remember recently some posted a link to a paper on fish behaviour. The article was basically saying that fish that have been raised in tanks with a detailed and natural aquascape were healthier than ones in sparsely decorated bare tanks.
Without stimulation some fish suffer for it.
I think this is especially true for intelligent fish like cichlids.
A small tank will only have a minimal amount of room for such decor,providing the fish very little to explore.
A larger area can have lots of decor,defining different area and zones that the fish can explore and swim round.
These types of stimulation have proven to be more beneficial to fish health and it's not surprising.
I have seen lots of oscars moping about in a bare 75 looking pitiful and bored out its brain.
Put one in a big tank with rocks and roots to explore and you have a different animal altogether.
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Lets talk about a hot topic "Appropriate tank size for ____"

I just think that fish in bigger tanks with more space act more naturally and look as well as grow better.
www.monsterfishkeepers.com www.monsterfishkeepers.com

And I think anyone who has kept gourami species like giant gourami would agree their intelligence is on par with oscars and such.

Concerning what 12 Volt Man said, all the above outlines why this is not just anthropomorphising. And I was going to mention similarly to what FINWIN FINWIN said how places like Fish Story move even bigger fish than giant gouramis like that, but was beaten to it.
 
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Friller2009 said:
There’s a reason I have a strong disliking for the city... Australia is slowly becoming like America. We aren’t as bad as Americans when it comes to being a tank sizes, as we tend to have to follow restrictions and outrageous prices. In Australia red tail cats are like 800 so no one buys them without knowing there care. Datnoids are rare round here, although there is a bloke near me who has a bunch who ‘Swam here’.

I am actually amazed on how the Asian folks keep there tanks so well. Even though they are a bit heavy on the stocking, the fish are all happy and healthy.

To be honest, I have never, and will probably never, see a Mbu puffer in the flesh. They just don’t exist here. Pea puffers are $200 a pop.
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Lol…$200 for a pea puffer!!? Actually, we may be slowly becoming more like Australia in terms of pet keeping. There’s some new legislation that is looking to make a whitelist of allowable species. Meaning, everything will be banned except what’s on the list. We may never see a pea puffer again.
 
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Friller2009 said:
It is clear that .avatar--xss { width: 21px; height: 21px; line-height: 21px !important; margin-right: 2px; } 12 Volt Man 12 Volt Man @12 Volt Man cares for Charlie and knows how Charlie is. You haven’t kept any giant gouramis of Charlie’s size, so who are you to criticise him for how he is kept? Charlie seems very happy and content in his tank.
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well said. thank you.
 
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phreeflow said:
Lol…$200 for a pea puffer!!?
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https://7fishs.com/products/pea-puffer?variant=42337771684055 These are on the lower side. Nano tanks have them for $400, but that is way overpriced and no-one would pay for them.
phreeflow said:
Actually, we may be slowly becoming more like Australia in terms of pet keeping. There’s some new legislation that is looking to make a whitelist of allowable species. Meaning, everything will be banned except what’s on the list. We may never see a pea puffer again.
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We have a whitelist of imports, and a blacklist of fish. I'll attach the illegal to own fish list for my state below. We can keep anything not on the blacklist, but it has to either originate from fish that were important pre whitelist, or they have to legally come in via zoos/aqauriums, as once they're in the country, they're in the country. Because of this 'once it's in it's in' there is some sketchy smuggles that happen, and it really needs to be cracked down on.

 
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altums85 said:
This fish police kid needs to stop lol
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I have to agree slightly with you there. He hasn’t good ideas, however he takes them to extremely. I know he only has the best interests of the fish at heart, and all I can do is respect that. However that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with everything he says. I mean i’m all for enriching the lives of our fish, but we simply can not replicate what fish have in the wild in a glass box. I’ve seen shops where in 7-8fts (can’t remember exactly) they sell their Clown loaches. And do you know what they do in their? They school. At least one hundred, young, juvenile and even a few rescue/boarding adults, moving as one in a tank. Now I haven’t seen much of loaches online, I’ve never even kept a loach, but from the little that I know about them, mainly from the Loachman himself, is that they are active, social fish. If in a glass box this schooling behaviour is shown, (they were the only species in the tank, the tank was at the back of their store, so plenty of cover from the entrance, and they would swim towards you when you walked by the tank, so you can’t say this was stress behaviour), we can only imagine what they would do in the wild. If we go by these tank size guidelines you are promoting, quite frankly, I don’t think it’s possible to care for schooling fish in general (There is a reason large schoolers get so fat in captivity. It’s just impossible to recreate the space they have In the wild. You cannot recreate an entire bloody river in your home! So we just give our large fish the biggest tanks we possibly can that would suit this fish. He talked about Fish Story, who is thebiggerthebetter thebiggerthebetter here, and He (just gonna say he, because I don’t know how to spell his name, don’t want to spell it wrong) also clearly cares for his fish. The way he keeps is the way personally, I think we should all keep. While the loachman has stated how Charlie needs more enrichment, being decor and the like, The Bigger the better, (Victor/Viktor sorry mate), keeps many of his tanks bare, yet you do not criticise him for it?
 
Friller2009 said:
keeps many of his tanks bare, yet you do not criticise him for it?
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I did discuss with him about it. I have come to feel it's not the best idea to be keeping the fish if they can't be provided with some enrichment:

Troubleshooting fish losses over 2015-2022, summary

Today is 2022. Since 2015, over the past 7 years we lost a lot of fish. If you look over this thread of ours (started in 2017), you’ll get the idea how many and what kinds of fish. We aim to be transparent and learn from the good, bad and the ugly...
www.monsterfishkeepers.com www.monsterfishkeepers.com

As for the rest of what you said, I can respect that everyone's opinions differ, such as yours, as well as that not everyone will agree with me for reasons of practicality. Cheers and best wishes.
 
Friller2009 said:
https://7fishs.com/products/pea-puffer?variant=42337771684055 These are on the lower side. Nano tanks have them for $400, but that is way overpriced and no-one would pay for them.

We have a whitelist of imports, and a blacklist of fish. I'll attach the illegal to own fish list for my state below. We can keep anything not on the blacklist, but it has to either originate from fish that were important pre whitelist, or they have to legally come in via zoos/aqauriums, as once they're in the country, they're in the country. Because of this 'once it's in it's in' there is some sketchy smuggles that happen, and it really needs to be cracked down on.

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Thanks for the info….that list doesn’t look as bad as people make it sound. However, the prices on that website you linked were more surprising…$800 for an endichleri bichir, $1100 for an altum!?
 
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