Ethics in fishkeeping

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Let me start by saying that I haven't read any responses to your post. For M=myself, a keeper of a silver arowanna and a tsn ( both about a foot in length), at a point in the not-to-distant future, a heated pond is in my future. Right now it looks like I'm going 16' Intex pool converted into a pond that will more than likely reside in my garage. With a little planning, and some more cash I could alter my plans to house an Arapima for it's entire life. In my mind, it isn't that big of a leap from housing a fish that tops out close to 4' to one that hits 5-7' (RTC's, Arapimas). I consider myself a responsible fishkeeper, and one who's thinking not only about the next step, but 3 steps ahead in regards to housing requirements. Maybe I'm in the minority.
 
ecoli73 said:
300 gallon overstocked tank. It takes more effort but worth it.

The fish are healthy, and all of then lived through 5 weeks of my vacation.

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Cool tank.

Maybe once they all grow out, you may end up being overstocked, but it looks like a reasonable setup.

What's the stocklist?
 
Let's also put a fair amount of blame on the majority of LFS's. I thinks its safe to say a large portion of new fish keepers obtain the bulk of their rookie knowledge from store employees. This is one of the genesis' of keeping TSN etc in 55 gallon tanks. I had so much smoke blown up my @## from multiple different stores and this was pre MFK. I shudder to think of some of the monsters I killed from too small a tank and overcrowding. I started to question my sources when I was sold a 11 inch tiger O for a 20 long. "oh yeah thats a big enough tank for him" I felt sick after putting him in. Sometimes you don't realize how large a fish is until you get it home. I like to think sometimes we are at odds with the people who supply us with our pets. It is a very uphill battle on trying to get others to keep fish more responsibly when the $ signs in the new fish keepers eyes scream at the employees to sell that clown knife to that guy with 30. After he kills that he will be back for a lungfish!!! Lets start a pole, how many monster fish did you put in a 55 or smaller before you found MFK.
 
LOL my stock list is cringe worthy(the tank looks empty because a majority of the loaches are already in their hole:

30+ clown loaches
3 red tail loach
1 Syno cat
4 plecos(gold nugget, blue phantom, vampire, albino sailfin)
2 redhook silver dollar
2 wide bar SD
2 narrow bar SD
5 tinfoil barbs
3 bala sharks
a pair of jewel fish
5 Central/South American Cichilds(texas, JD, GT, V. Syn, convict)
23 African Cichlids(1 red empress, 2 electric blue, 6 yellow labs, 2 deep water hap, 2 eye biter, 1 A. Chrysti, 1 blue dolphin, 1 taiwan reef, 3 OB peacock, 2 sunshine, 2 misc peacocks)

Since none of the fish are tank buster range(the loaches can be but all of them are of 2"-5" range), I go by water quality. With lots of portos and twice a week 40% water changes, nitrates are somewhere between 0 and 20 ppm. Even after 5 weeks of no water change(vacation) the nitrate rose just a tad above 40 ppm(fixed already)

No aggression with the exception that the 3 redtail loaches would fight each other sometimes.

Key to this is: the dithers are bigger and quicker than the cichlids...
Africans are milder varieties(no psychos like Kenyi), No possible CA/SA pairs....The only potential pair is the Jewel but they are just too small to do anything.
 
ecoli, I was expecting you to have some Bumblebee Grouper, Red Tail Cats and a group of Silver Aros. It's interesting you seem to defend people who keep tank busters in relatively small tanks, yet you take a more reasonable approach to your own stocking choices. You may have lots of fish, but none of them will outgrow that tank.

On another note, anyone else wondering where the OP went? He shook the hornets nests by creating this thread and hasn't been back.

Where's pepe? :confused:
 
pepe said:
Just browsing through various posts today and found the nature of some to be rather disturbing.The number of people keeping arapaima in home aquaria is amazing.Are there really that many of us that can provide the conditions needed for such a beautiful creature to thrive in? In most of the U.S. and U.K. this would mean a heated outdoor pond just to start with. If you can provide all this great but for 99.9% of us this would be impractical if not impossible ; no way will it turn out good for the fish. Arapaima are an extreme example but we should be asking the same questions regardless of what species we choose to share our space with.Can we provide a home for this animal that will allow it not only to survive but thrive ?
The second thing I noticed was the infamous "how many fish can I keep in a whatever" question.Well, how many people could live in your bedroom? With food and a semi-clean environment probably more then that would make it a pleasant existence. I strongly believe that creating an environment with minimal added stress is more important to successful fish keeping then tinkering with water chemistry. Let' start bragging how long we have had a fish instead of how many.
I'm not an expert on anything ,just an old guy that cherishes life,of all forms. These questions can only be answered by ourselves and our decisions only have to make the individual comfortable.
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Agreed !!!!!

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