You want your piranha to eat an oscar? WTF man..... Oscars ain't goldfish... damn. That ain't right. 
what the....
- Thread starter jp80911
- Start date
Armand;3073048; said:Well some guys advice you feed piranha with cichlids but I assume that oscar is big so if the rhom charges against him it aint gonna be pretty man, that oscar is going to be torn apart slowly and painfully due to its probably big size....
Just put him in another tank...
The 55g is down for over a month now, I can't just put the oscar in it. if it's still alive after I get home today then I'll take care of it myself. oscar filet
I disagree, what ain't right is feeding goldfish to piranha as they are not good feeders.Rob Martin;3073106; said:You want your piranha to eat an oscar? WTF man..... Oscars ain't goldfish... damn. That ain't right.
Oscar is part of piranha's diet in the wild (as baby piranhas can also be part of oscars' diet in the wild) and why should it be different in my tank? anyway, I'm not going to get into this argument.
jp80911;3073652; said:
Absolutely. There's too much moral relativism on MFK.
It's not immoral just because you don't like it. If that P could fit in the oscars mouth then the P would be lunch.
I'm not arguing that killing an oscar is a moral action; I'm arguing that IF killing an oscar (a fish) is immoral, THEN killing a goldfish (a fish) is immoral. Since this is obviously ridiculous given the fact that we keep piscivorous (fish eating) piranhas then the eating of oscars is likewise ridiculous. I would give you the symbolic formula for this reasoning, but I don't have a key for the symbol of material implication on my keyboard.
The fact is oscars and other cichlids that some of you guys keep as pets are dithers/food for the fish that we keep as pets. You don't see me over in the cichlid forum making negative comments on the use of dithers in cichlid tanks.
Diogenes;3073728; said:
I disagree, yet I'll keep it civil. I've kept a shoal of P's before. I NEVER fed them live, goldfish or otherwise. This is how I roll with all my pets. I also breed snakes, and NONE of them eat live prey either. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against those who decide to feed live prey. HOWEVER, I think most aquarists, including those that DON'T keep oscars, would agree that as far as fish go Oscars have a ton of personality and exhibit some intelligence (again, as far as fish go). To me, you guys comparing a piranha eating a goldfish and a piranha eating an oscar is pretty much like saying a large snake eating a big rat is the same as a large snake eating a puppy. It just ain't the same. I'm not going to get into a moral debate about "a fish is a fish" because I simply don't agree. I personally feel that an oscar is a tad more up the food chain than a basic feeder. Not to mention, a feeder is gone in single bite (assuming you're feeding proper sized prey) an oscar is going to get torn up and suffer needlessly for a long and agonizing death. Perhaps this is the norm in the wild as you guys say, but let's face it... Our tanks are not the wild. Why make an animal suffer needlessly? To each his own I guess, but I'd never use an oscar for feed another fish, not when there are so many other alternatives that can be easily and cheaply acquired i.e. shrimp, worms, silversides, fish filet, etc.
if i'd have a large enough pond to have a ****load of p's,then i would feed puppy if they are bred for that purpose
no..i would not...but if the dogs were not so cute and would never been pets to human.......you see where i want to go?
oscar if fish,fish eat fish
of course there is the size factor...a single rhom would be too long kill for a similar sized fish to feed him.but in a shoal of reds....
no..i would not...but if the dogs were not so cute and would never been pets to human.......you see where i want to go?
oscar if fish,fish eat fish
of course there is the size factor...a single rhom would be too long kill for a similar sized fish to feed him.but in a shoal of reds....
Rob Martin;3074020; said:
Sorry guys I pretty much
with this. It is true that oscars show a bigger degree of intelligence that other fish, that includes P's that is a fact...Rob Martin you 've got a good point.
Rob Martin;3074020; said:
Well I guess we can agree to disagree but I would like to respond to a few points. Thanks for keeping it civil. Reasonable discourse is usually the first casualty of an abundance of sentimentality.
So let me get this straight. It seems that your argument rests on a couple of different points. First you say that because an oscar is smarter than a goldfish, our fish shouldn't eat them. Secondly you argue that the expeditious manner in which the goldfish is dispatched is more humane than allowing a fish to be slowly picked at the way larger oscars are by piranhas. Finally, it seems price and convenience seem to be factors in what you determine is worthy of feeder status or not. Ok.
1. Oscars are pets not feeders, they're higher on the food chain Cows, and turkeys are smarter than oscars, should we not eat them too? For that matter should I feel guilty about the tilapia (another cichlid) that I ate for dinner night before last? The eating of animals in general is a somewhat unpleasant business, but being omnivores the overwhelming majority of us eat animals. Is it more moral to eat those animals because they come in shrink-wrapped little packages with price tags on them? If your not feeding live rats to your snakes, what are feeding them....corn flakes? I bet you feed frozen mice which were bred for the sole purpose of being snake food, despite the fact that some people keep them as pets. Also, wouldn't it depend on who you ask as to whether or not oscars are more personable than goldfish? There are more pet goldfish in the world than oscars. I would imagine some goldfish keepers feel the same way about their goldfish, yet other oscar keepers are feeding them by the dozens to their oscars.
2. Death by piranha is too inhumane Do you know what pharyngeal teeth are? pharyngeal teeth are part of what makes a cichlid a cichlid. They're teeth inside the throat. These cichlid teeth allow cichlids to develop niche feeding behaviors based on the form and function of these teeth. In an oscar they are designed to tear and crush flesh in much the same way as our molars. When an oscar swallows a fish, it doesn't die immediately. It is sucked back to the pharyngeal jaw in the throat, where it is ground and ripped apart in a manner similiar to the way a piranha eats fish. With oscars it happens in the throat, with P's it happens outside the mouth. In addition to this, couldn't we negate your argument altogether by feeding baby oscars? If I feed a smaller version of an oscar, does that make it more moral to feed oscars? You say oscars are a few notches higher on the food chain than goldfish, and indeed they are, but piranhas are a few ticks up the food chain from an oscar. When piranhas eat cichlids, just think of it as characin balancing the books for all the tetras that all the oscars have eaten in tanks around the world over the years.
pharyngeal teeth:
3. Cost & convenience I believe JP got these particular oscars for free or cheap simply because they had outgrown their tanks at the big box pet store, and were scheduled for the dumpster. It doesn't get much more cost effective than that. I suppose you would argue that it's more ethical to allow the fish to dry up in a trash can, than to live out the last of their days dining on the algae eaters, convicts, and molly's in jp's planted 180g tank. Sounds like a better end to me.
Anyway. To each their own. If you don't want to feed live then don't, but feeding dead is the same thing. Either way animals are dying to nourish other animals. It's the cycle of life that even our favorite species Homo sapiens is not isolated from.
Diogenes;3074795; said:Well I guess we can agree to disagree but I would like to respond to a few points. Thanks for keeping it civil. Reasonable discourse is usually the first casualty of an abundance of sentimentality.
So let me get this straight. It seems that your argument rests on a couple of different points. First you say that because an oscar is smarter than a goldfish, our fish shouldn't eat them. Secondly you argue that the expeditious manner in which the goldfish is dispatched is more humane than allowing a fish to be slowly picked at the way larger oscars are by piranhas. Finally, it seems price and convenience seem to be factors in what you determine is worthy of feeder status or not. Ok.
1. Oscars are pets not feeders, they're higher on the food chain Cows, and turkeys are smarter than oscars, should we not eat them too? For that matter should I feel guilty about the tilapia (another cichlid) that I ate for dinner night before last? The eating of animals in general is a somewhat unpleasant business, but being omnivores the overwhelming majority of us eat animals. Is it more moral to eat those animals because they come in shrink-wrapped little packages with price tags on them? If your not feeding live rats to your snakes, what are feeding them....corn flakes? I bet you feed frozen mice which were bred for the sole purpose of being snake food, despite the fact that some people keep them as pets. Also, wouldn't it depend on who you ask as to whether or not oscars are more personable than goldfish? There are more pet goldfish in the world than oscars. I would imagine some goldfish keepers feel the same way about their goldfish, yet other oscar keepers are feeding them by the dozens to their oscars.
2. Death by piranha is too inhumane Do you know what pharyngeal teeth are? pharyngeal teeth are part of what makes a cichlid a cichlid. They're teeth inside the throat. These cichlid teeth allow cichlids to develop niche feeding behaviors based on the form and function of these teeth. In an oscar they are designed to tear and crush flesh in much the same way as our molars. When an oscar swallows a fish, it doesn't die immediately. It is sucked back to the pharyngeal jaw in the throat, where it is ground and ripped apart in a manner similiar to the way a piranha eats fish. With oscars it happens in the throat, with P's it happens outside the mouth. In addition to this, couldn't we negate your argument altogether by feeding baby oscars? If I feed a smaller version of an oscar, does that make it more moral to feed oscars? You say oscars are a few notches higher on the food chain than goldfish, and indeed they are, but piranhas are a few ticks up the food chain from an oscar. When piranhas eat cichlids, just think of it as characin balancing the books for all the tetras that all the oscars have eaten in tanks around the world over the years.
pharyngeal teeth:
3. Cost & convenience I believe JP got these particular oscars for free or cheap simply because they had outgrown their tanks at the big box pet store, and were scheduled for the dumpster. It doesn't get much more cost effective than that. I suppose you would argue that it's more ethical to allow the fish to dry up in a trash can, than to live out the last of their days dining on the algae eaters, convicts, and molly's in jp's planted 180g tank. Sounds like a better end to me.
Anyway. To each their own. If you don't want to feed live then don't, but feeding dead is the same thing. Either way animals are dying to nourish other animals. It's the cycle of life that even our favorite species Homo sapiens is not isolated from.
