I agree.
I'm sort of on the fence about the plecos.
I'm not gonna lie, they look really good, but I really don't like messing with nature to suit my taste.
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Any strong opinions on the ethics of long-fin varieties of fish?
- Thread starter AdoraBelle Dearheart
- Start date
I'm sort of on the fence about the plecos.
I'm not gonna lie, they look really good, but I really don't like messing with nature to suit my taste.
Uberhoust
Fish Herder
Personally I am not very keen on breeding for any trait that reduces the robustness of the organism. On the other side of the fence, we are not raising these fish to be placed back into the wild or are trying to keep the population of a rare species going, except a very few people, so if you want long fins, balloon, or cnidarian based colors then enjoy. My neighbors have brachycephalic dogs, french bulldogs, the dogs don't know they are modified, and they live their life as best they can and truly appear to enjoy being alive. I suspect these special fish are the same. My last batch of angels had a number of deformed albinos, I kept four of them and though they are not robust they are extremely friendly to me compared to their larger "proper" siblings. I keep fish because I like to see them interact, their colors, how they work with their environment. Other people keep fish for other reasons, if I was 10 again I would definitely want some glow fish.
OP
OP
Ah, but you admit they look good! lol. I definitely know what you mean though.
I'm still tempted. We'll see. It might just be a fish I keep once, then never again. I'm sure most of us have fish that we'd make an exception for!
Good grief ! Long finned Corydoras ? That ain’t right.
OP
OP
Oh, there's worse! I hoped these were photoshopped at first, but they're real... check this out:
AND:
That thing got more to worry about than just fins
Okay folks , here’s the skinny. These fish are sports. Mutants . Whether they crop up occasionally in the wild or not I don’t know but if they did they would get eaten . The person who would perpetuate these monstrosity’s is a fiend or a mad doctor. I keep my Golden Wonder Killifish and I like them but try as I might I can’t lay my hands on the original wild type. This is what will happen to all of these sports. The true original , the real Slim Shady , will disappear.
I feel sick right now. Until today I had not heard of long finned Corydoras . I was blissfully unaware of their very existence. Some of the last of my innocence is lost forever. I march yet harder to jaded apathy. A pox on the creator of this poor creature.
I feel sick right now. Until today I had not heard of long finned Corydoras . I was blissfully unaware of their very existence. Some of the last of my innocence is lost forever. I march yet harder to jaded apathy. A pox on the creator of this poor creature.
TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
Consider that when talking about long fins, one is also talking about line breeding to produce those long fins. I have kept long finned ancistrus and I currently have long finned paleatus. So here is my question re line breeding. I would guess most folks do not keep discus, angels or an assortment of cichlids because they are mostly no more natural than long fins. Look at the goldfish varieties. Almost none of these fish would do well on the wild.
Nature tends to develop traits which contribute to the survival of species. This is what mutation is all about. However, this is not the same thing when we look at albino fish. This is a natural genetic condition that robs an animal of the ability to produce color. In the wild this likely makes such fish better targets which is why they are not so common in the wild. But in a tank we can line breed for this and the fish can thrive in many tanks. So there are tons of long finned fish in tanks but not in the wild.
However, nature also does some strange things. Consider the Montezuma swordtail. It's tail is longer than it's body. Eventually this makes them less able to swim as well. So it is clear that nature might make long fins, but not all that often because in most cases the fish will not be able to compete, and that trait cannot become established in the wild. For that to happen it takes people and aquariums.
Consider the colors of fish. They are what they are for a reason. Create a color variety for keeping in tanks and I wonder if it would or would not be a disadvantage were the fish in the wild. Think about what colors wild discus and wild angels are and then look at the colors variations of these fish in the hobby. Can we say these are "natural?"
Science is agnostic. Splitting the atom can make energy or it can wipe out cities and all the people in them. Electricity lights the world and also is used to execute people. On a much smaller scale the same applies to our ability to line breed animals. There are a lot of instance over time where this practice was intended to benefit people. A stronger work horse, a better hunting dog, faster and more growth in species we use as food.
Unfortunately, this is not so simple an issue as for us to limit it to some species of fish or to certain traits for which we humans line breed. And this does not even touch on the issues of genetic manipulation. If it can be used to address genetically based diseases or to breed smarter people and it can be used to produce glofish......... where is the line? And who has the right to draw it?
Nature tends to develop traits which contribute to the survival of species. This is what mutation is all about. However, this is not the same thing when we look at albino fish. This is a natural genetic condition that robs an animal of the ability to produce color. In the wild this likely makes such fish better targets which is why they are not so common in the wild. But in a tank we can line breed for this and the fish can thrive in many tanks. So there are tons of long finned fish in tanks but not in the wild.
However, nature also does some strange things. Consider the Montezuma swordtail. It's tail is longer than it's body. Eventually this makes them less able to swim as well. So it is clear that nature might make long fins, but not all that often because in most cases the fish will not be able to compete, and that trait cannot become established in the wild. For that to happen it takes people and aquariums.
Consider the colors of fish. They are what they are for a reason. Create a color variety for keeping in tanks and I wonder if it would or would not be a disadvantage were the fish in the wild. Think about what colors wild discus and wild angels are and then look at the colors variations of these fish in the hobby. Can we say these are "natural?"
Science is agnostic. Splitting the atom can make energy or it can wipe out cities and all the people in them. Electricity lights the world and also is used to execute people. On a much smaller scale the same applies to our ability to line breed animals. There are a lot of instance over time where this practice was intended to benefit people. A stronger work horse, a better hunting dog, faster and more growth in species we use as food.
Unfortunately, this is not so simple an issue as for us to limit it to some species of fish or to certain traits for which we humans line breed. And this does not even touch on the issues of genetic manipulation. If it can be used to address genetically based diseases or to breed smarter people and it can be used to produce glofish......... where is the line? And who has the right to draw it?
I would only keep wild form Discus, and no goldfish will cross my door. I have no beef with you if you do though.
I don't think anyone would say a pigeon blood Discus looks natural. Yes, if carefully manipulated, the genetic possibility for those garish colours is there. But someone decided to actually do that, and had to work very hard to uglify that fish. The same with angels that have deformed flank scales. It doesn't seem to harm them. I think it looks awful and would only buy a natural angel. I had beautiful wild caughts until recently.
Fin growth has gone very wrong with some species, either through diseases linked to the same genes selected, or through fins that begin to twist in on themselves and become fatal growths. I believe, somewhere, I saw that was a problem with some long finned Cory lines. I can't find that source. Linebreeders were working blind, and didn't always understand what trait shared what gene with what other traits ( a serious oversimplification). When it worked and nothing died, the drive with fish has been commercial.
It's a complex kettle of fish when we forget about the question asked at the start of the thread. Is it ethical to keep long finned mutant fish? If it isn't, then we have a problem with fancy guppies, fancy Bettas and a host of mainstream market fish.
The long forked tail of my Japan Blue does absolutely nothing to alleviate the irritation of the females. Astonishingly fast swimmer, not sure every manipulation to the genetics is harmful.
How long is considered "long" on a fish? What fins are we talking about? Caudal? Anal? Ventral? Pectoral? Asking this because it seems no one mentioned that some fish species have "long" fins that naturally occured in nature.
I think that everyone here is talking about fish with naturally short(or regular) fins that have been bred to have abnormally long fins.
Guppy Endler cross according to the seller
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