Keeping Big Fish Small

[Redearsunfish]

facepalm. yes i took the time to write it instead of a emoticon thingamajig.

 

[skillzizzo]

I don't uderstand why it's bad for the fish, in the wild a fish only grows as big as it's environment and food supply allow for. If the fish doesn't have an unlimited food supply it will just stay a scaled down model of a fully grown specimen.

Correction. There is no limited space in its natural enviroment. Keeping a dovi for example. For life in a 75 long say is insufficient space. One in the wild has as much room as it wants. And a wild fish with not enough food supply or limited food supply or some kind of lack there off. Would just die. And if it didnt it would still grow. Just be skinny and unhealthy.

So with out trying to be a dick in any way. My opinion of purposely feeding a fish bare minimum and keeping in a two small tank on purpose. Is wrong and immorral. I have seen fish in a fish store more then once. with a kind of curiture of the spine from just such neglect. A ten inch and 8 inch pair of jags that looked like a S allmost not quit that bent I saw last year. And it was so fish store stuff to have the pair for sale for 375 dollars. Those fish
should have been put out of there missiory.

So in short. It is bad as hell for the fish. And like us eating a pack of ramine a day and stuffed in a 6x9 cell for life. Oviously you dont know what that is like. Because you wouldnt even think of such an idea.

 

[knifegill]

The examples they are thinking of are over-populated carp ponds and lakes that are evaporating, and also when food is not plentiful. In these cases, the wild population of that species does remain smaller. It's not healthy and the fish will be disadvantaged, but it does happen in nature. Bears also claw salmon out of rivers in the wild. Are you going to rent a bear to come into your living room to eat your fish? No more would you want to stunt them. Nature is a cruel beast and not always a good example of what is acceptable treatment for a given animal.

 

[aclockworkorange]

Of course not everyone knows but usually when getting a new live pet you expect a grown adult to be responsible and do the proper research. Ignorance isn't an excuse. That's like me getting a Python and improperly caring for it and using the "I didn't know." I know nothing about keeping reptiles so being a logical/responsible adult I'd do the proper research first.

Yes, we do have the luxury of the internet now. There really is no excuse not to research all this stuff. But keeping fish before the Internet... this was largely done by guesswork, advice from hobbyist to hobbyist, and lots of trial and error. A lot of people made all of these mistakes and learned from them so we can have the benefit of simply clicking a few things on a computer and finding all the information we need.

 

[Jon M]

Yes, we do have the luxury of the internet now. There really is no excuse not to research all this stuff. But keeping fish before the Internet... this was largely done by guesswork, advice from hobbyist to hobbyist, and lots of trial and error. A lot of people made all of these mistakes and learned from them so we can have the benefit of simply clicking a few things on a computer and finding all the information we need.

Agreed and I'm sure it was much worse back then considering most of the advice received was from employees at lfs. We all know how helpful that is in this day in age. I'm certainly grateful for our resources in this day in age and the pioneers that were in this hobby back in the day when we didn't have the resources we have now. I bet it was hell dealing with the trial and error back then with little to no resources. Definitely no excuse to not do the research no a days.

 

[MN_Rebel]

The examples they are thinking of are over-populated carp ponds and lakes that are evaporating, and also when food is not plentiful. In these cases, the wild population of that species does remain smaller. It's not healthy and the fish will be disadvantaged, but it does happen in nature. Bears also claw salmon out of rivers in the wild. Are you going to rent a bear to come into your living room to eat your fish? No more would you want to stunt them. Nature is a cruel beast and not always a good example of what is acceptable treatment for a given animal.

It's not only carp but also other species as well. Overpopulation of northern pike in small lakes, they do not look very healthy or fat, just skinny and have huge heads. Same thing with panfish, trouts, roughfish and largemouth bass. Wild stunted fish are almost always in poor shape.

 

[bomber]

4 pages, I believe he now knows.

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

I think the MFK spirit is "Keeping small fish big"

I pretty much would like all my fishes to grow above average by feeding the best quality pellets and giving it the best water parameters

 

[johnny potatoes]

Think about it. If it was as easy as what you're suggesting, there would be a huge market for miniature tank-busters. Breeding farms, with much better resources, would be tripping over each other in efforts of producing enough designer miniatures to offer to customers all over the world.

Not that it would be easy to do this but it has been done with dogs. I wonder if anyone is working on this, it would be interesting.

 

[MN_Rebel]

Not that it would be easy to do this but it has been done with dogs. I wonder if anyone is working on this, it would be interesting.

You cannot compared a mammal to a fish, they are too different from each other. Dwarfism just doesn't existed in the fish world as they lacked the genetics for dwarfism due to the fish won't stop growing till the day they died.