is fish keeping immoral??

[Tjend]

well thats kind of like saying its immoral to keep any kind of pet, dogs, cats i dont think its immoral unless they arent recieving proper care

 

[cchhcc]

I think of it this way, a fish in the wild has two worries, finding food and not becoming food, when in a tank these worries (if taken care of properly) cease to exist. Thats my 2 cents.

Right there with ya! Put a nice pair of small to medium sized cichlids or something similar in a large tank with a handful of other tankmates, a natural decor, plenty of food, and their life is gooooooood!

I think the key issue, though, is how we grossly underestimate what an adequate tank size is.

But I'll add to it, that I think the way many, actually MOST, "monster" fish are kept is far from appropriate (or moral as the OP puts it). To even consider keeping an arapaima, RTC, or many other of the popular fish is a stretch. Almost no one gives them what they need. Those are predatory, intelligent, and inquisitive fish that need thousands upon thousands of gallons and something quite the opposite of the stimulus poor environments we give them. It's very disturbing to see so many newbie fishkeepers cutting their teeth on beasts that the most experienced guys in the biz know better than to even attempt.

The ultimate example is the difficulty one finds here or elsewhere finding a photo of a fully grown "anything" in captivity. Even fully grown specimens of the larger cichlid species are tough to come by. Everyone seems to have juvies and half-grown specimens, but where are the fully mature adults? The few that exist almost always are living in terrifically large quarters......as they should be!

 

[snyder810]

who are we as humans to prescribe the amount of space a fish needs to swim, how do we really know our fish are happy or not and what mental capacity they really posses?? as for dogs being breed in captivity, thats the reason why they were breed and over years of assimlation they learned the live as PETS for the human species. its with this reasoning i only believe in hybrids.

use whatever means you wish to justify hybrids but they are still living fish the same as any other fish so as stated what gives you the right to "prescribe the amount of space a fish needs to swim" hybrid or not?

and how do you believe hybrids come about? this would be by the breeding of different species, those species were the same originals that you so willingly judge the keeping of and not offering correct mates..without them you would never even have your hybrids so i still don't understand your justifications.

if you believe that the practice of keeping fish is immoral then don't do it on any level, don't judge one side while doing the exact same thing only with a different species (hybrid or not).

 

[sostoudt]

could be, but so is probably half the stuff you do in a day.

lets say it is immoral, is it more immoral to keep keeping them or put them to death, which is what would happen if every aquarist just stopped keeping fish?