At what point do the long fins effect quality of life, for a fish???

As I contemplate a Beta for the 1st time, I wonder… about the fins… ( I know, they all don’t have big fins ) big fins are everywhere now though, tails yes, but “dumbo” side fins also, the “fin” thing ranges from Guppies to Plecos… the only ornamental fin fish I currently have, we affectionately call the “hairy fairy” a long fin, blue eye, albino bushy nose pleco, which seems to be just fine with the extra finage it’s dragging around, it’s highly mobile… is it going to keep going, until the fish can only lay on the bottom, and be hand fed???

Ours seems to do just fine, it’s highly active, and thriving…

I think it has an enormous impact on fish that are swimmers. Bottom oriented and sucker type fish, maybe not. But I know of no studies to back me up.

In many cases, the fish have to deal with considerable drag that makes swimming an effort. An effortless swimmer like a zebra danio visibly labours in its longfin form. Longfin Bettas can be in visible distress in a tank a wild Betta would thrive in.

Personally, I will not keep any long finned mutation of a fish. It's too close to cruelty breeding in my world view, which I know is a minority view. I can see why others will buy them, but for me, it's ugly. I don't mean the flowing fins are ugly, but the implications of those fins are.

There are some species with natural fin extensions, or larger fins, but as these features have evolved naturally, they have supporting muscles and body structures to go with it. Aquarium sports often don't, or the mutation is pushed to extremes that can appear to be debilitating.

example...

The video you posted contains the proof...

You can see how they struggle to gain very little acceleration compared to the short finned guppies. Any mutts can rocket across a thank like that without effort.

The color and fin morphs that have been line bred into fish that we have in our tanks would likely not survive very long in the wild. Nature has determined that their normal color and finnage is what is ideal for them.

In a tank an albino fish stands out but, if there are no predators, it doesn't matter. In the wild it likely would. This would likely be moreso the case for long fins which likely affect the speed and mobility of any fish. But in a tank where this isn't and issue it doesn't matter.

I did keep one fish that has an unusually long tail in the wild, Xiphophorus montezumae, aka Montezuma swordtail. Male swords are always chasing the ladies. But I noticed as the fish grew and the sword got ever longer, it did not compete as well with the shorter tailed younger fish. The big males rest a lot.



edited for bad spelling and typos

I do think it matters, and the long fins place the fish at a disadvantage. True that in an aquarium it is less critical, but I generally hate them. My own bias, I acknowledge.

@TwoTankAmin … I just saw those listed one places I buy from… huge tail ( not that big though )

We go in the same circles, chasing our tails. We have to decide. Do we want ornamental fish, or do we want natural? If we have both, then how do we run the tank? If it's run for natural fish, ornament fish will suffer and not be able to keep up. You can't release the pugs and French bulldogs into the wolf pack. If we run it for ornamental fish, we have to decide how much handicapping of the fish we support. There, we often have an interest in linebreeding, and cultivating unnatural forms that come from mutations that would kill the fish in nature.

A breeder of the super finned Simpson High Fin swordtail once told me I had a defective brain because every normal person who looked at his fish would understand it was the epitome of beauty. He told me my lack of love for the fish meant I had a learning disability in the part of my brain that interpreted beauty, and that he hoped I hadn't produced children. I don't think we need to get that hardcore about taste, but I do think overgrown fins harm the fish.

We see some fish with naturally long fins ( like angels ) and there are several, usually smaller fish that have fin extensions ( threads ) on males as the mature ( I have several in my African tetra tank that are growing long dorsal extensions right now ) … the “dumbo ear” line breeding really looks inefficient, for the fish in the video I linked above, albeit no worse for the fish than the huge flowing fins of a fancy beta… the picture of that monster length sword tail, approach’s the hand feeding reference, in my 1st post

There is a key difference in natural extensions versus out of control fin growth. It's one thing is a fish has one or more fin rays that extend far beyond the others, as mate attracting finery. You get that on many tetras, but they can swim fast and easily. On domestic strains, the fin growth is the entire fin. The tail of a fancy guppy or linebred betta is many times the size of a wild's, on every ray and every fin. The genes chosen for affect all the growth.

My favourite killies, Aphyosemion, have been called bannertails in English. Some have extended dorsals, or lyre tails, naturally. But the extensions are partial, and supported by the muscles and body shape. I had an Alestopetersius sp tetra that had a long 'rocket tail' extension in the middle of its caudal, like a rocket killie (E annulatus). But with it in the middle rays, it didn't affect the ability of the fish to turn on a dime.

I've seen some marketed mutations where the fin was deeply crinkled up and turning on itself like a bad toenail. That has to be a misery for the fish. Contrary to myth, fish have nervous systems probably as sensitive as our own, by the way. I think a really clear example of cruel breeding wasn't fins, but the craze for balloon fish, where a genetic diseases producing a form of scoliosis was exploited to sell people "cute" and stumpy fish. That was downright nasty.

I believe they call that last mutation cauliflower???

montezumae are a natural species - one of the most fascinating of the swordtail group. I used to sell huge numbers of them for $5 each... I saturated the market in Montreal and no one would bid on them in auctions...

In my opinion, no one has linebred a version of X helleri, or a helleri hybrid that even approaches the beauty of some of the wild species like montezumae, or nezahualcoyotl.

Magnum Man said:

https://www.dansfish.com/product.detail/6306/Montezuma-Swordtail-Trio-(1M2F)-(Xiphophorus-montezumae)

Click to expand...

Outrageous price.

All of my montezumae came from breeders. Some I know originate with Gary Lange, But I was buying them between 2002 and 2004. Only real fish nuts with connections had them. They were not sold in stores.

Dan has a great rep for healthy fish that are a;so very pricey. I never paid anything close to what he is charging and I bought them in groups not trios.

I should have mentioned in my original post what GaryE did above- that montexumae is not a line bred fish.

There is a difference between line breeding for a color variant than breeding for long fins or odd body shapes. I consider Glow fish to be an abomination.