cruelty to fishes!?

[BettaBoyz]

well, we've all seen in it petstore and little kids goldfish bowls and newbies overstocked tanks, but to an good aquarist? oh heavens no, we never would!

not.

my grandmother, in Montreal, gets the newspaper. on sunday they had a thing on cool framed in-wall fish tanks, neat! i read it, and i'm in shock. this guy makes fish tanks, neat ones that he sells for $500+! these in wall tanks are neat too, five inches deep, twelve tall, twelve wide (i think) framed to look like a picture. they're decorated and filled with fish. overstockage -gasp- then again, all the fish books i have show overstocked tanks. six guppies to 12 liters is definately overstocked. anyway, more reading.

the tanks aren't filtered. at all. lighted? yes. food hatch? yes. heater? yes. filter? no. it says 'fish can survive up to TWO YEARS in this environment'. i doubt. it's maybe 7 gallons of tank with maybe 20 inches of fish, no filter? they'd die! and they showed some fish that can live a while! a Plattie, some Neons and from what i could make out a Swordtail. i think. i gathered this from an article and some pictures, so if i'm wrong correct me.

but that, that is just fish cruelty. he's cutting their life down to almost one tenth, just for the sake of having a neat, closed aquarium in a wall!

 

[cassandra]

i feel the same way you do!! i see them all the time in fish stores they look really neat but so mean to the fishes

 

[smb]

Yes, it is absolutely cruel, imo.

 

[freshmike]

That is terrible! How could someone be so stupid!!!

I don't know what else to say!

 

[ginamoore]

omg that sounds terrable. so sad pore fishies. i have never seen one of these and i think i am lucky not to. i would prob think about way to much and make myself crazy worrying about those pore fishies.

 

[Mogo]

Some people just don't understand. You wouldn't go out and buy a dog on a whim without considering and finding out how to care for it first. Unfortunately many people have the "It's just a fish attitude"

A couple of days ago I was in line behind a lady at Walmart. She had a 1 gallon plastic critter keeper in one hand, and a bag of 12 goldfish in the other. They were feeders, but that makes no difference. I politely asked her if she was keeping all the goldfish in the 1 gallon. She said yes. I then said, "Oh so they're feeders for another fish" Needless to say, they were not for feeding and that these indeed were her new pets. I mentioned it was not a good idea, and she asked me why. I simply said that I didn't have the time to explain why and that she may want to pick up a couple books, I also mentioned the fact that doesn't common sense tell her that and 8x4x7" critter keeper isn't big enough for a dozen 1 1/2" fish?

 

[juanveldez]

I just can't imagine that kind of life for the fish, the only one that I have ever seen was a 29 gallon tank and all I can say that at least that was if anything understocked, it only had a school of neons and that was about it, and the ironic part of all this is that the tank is in a bar

 

[BlackWolf0503]

I was at the local Petdumb today & they had a bunch of loaches. Not sure which kind, but the guy their was telling me how the loaches will swim(ie get caught in) into the Filter system & end up in other tanks. I can't imagine a fish wanting to swim into an intake tube & getting passed through a filter system. That was just awful. Last time I ever buy from that joint.

 

[AquaNut]

You know what gets to me? Those glass coffee tables that are fish tanks. Most fish don't like being at floor level; it spooks them. Can you imagine how they like having things set on top of their tank all the time and how freaked out they must be when people are coming and going... getting up quickly from the furniture and all that? Ugh.

 

[wuvmybetta]

You know what gets to me? Those glass coffee tables that are fish tanks. Most fish don't like being at floor level; it spooks them. Can you imagine how they like having things set on top of their tank all the time and how freaked out they must be when people are coming and going... getting up quickly from the furniture and all that? Ugh.

No kidding,poor little guys

It's sad, living creatures turned into novelty items

 

[ade]

The coffee table reminds me of a Japanese restaurant in Vienna. Got taken there for lunch one day when I was working over there, didn't fancy sushi etc anyway (but they do "proper" food too ). Anyway, arrived at the restaurant to find that the floor was transparent and underneath was a koi tank.

The poor fish had all of about 10" depth of water - most of them had dorsal fins above the water, and the transparent floor was only about 4" higher than the fish. I dread to think what effect that had on the fish. Let alone knowing that their buddies were on the menu too!

Not a cruelty issue, but did find it strange that the fish & chip shop where we used to live had an eat-in section with a beautiful tropical tank set up in there. Quite odd to sit there watching the fish swim whilst eating fish I thought! But it was a beautifuol tank, and certainly well looked after.

 

[aquamanis]

I was in the local pet store the other day just browsing the fishtank section. I overheard two young guys telling the shop assistant how they had bought several fish only to have them die within a week. The shop assistant then went on to describe cycling and the nitrogen cycle etc and why thier fish had probably died. I thought this guys good. Then to my horror this same guy sold these two novices 2 tigerbarbs, 2 tetras, 2 angelfish and 4 silver sharks! I had to bite my tongue! Here he was having them believe he knew everything and this same guy was selling them more trouble than what they had before, I couldn,t believe it. I should have said something but being a shop owner myself I knew that I wouldn,t want somebody to do that to me but what a mongrel thing to do! If ever I get that shop assistant alone I,ll be letting him know about it!

 

[Jo]

It's so easy to get dragged into that trap though when you're a newbie like me...I trust what my lfs say about most things, but I think that thats mainly because I have been on here and got good advice that generally matches with what the fish shop said (IE, get platties, etc as first fish as they are more hardy...) I dread to think what would have happend to me if I'd have gone into a shop like the one you went into aquamanis!

I'd probably have ended up with some fish, that although looked good would have died straight away!

Well done for biting your tongue though, not sure that I would have been able to in the same situation!

 

[aberdeen aquarist]

why should we bite our tongue though, one of the first things that most people i have seen post about is new tank syndrome. surely if the lfs was doing their job correctly this wouldn't happen as often (i know that some people will add fish too soon anyway whatever they are told/advised). one of the shops here in aberdeen makes sure you know about cycling etc. and give you an info sheet about it when you ask for a tank or new fish if they don't recognise you, they even refuse to give you fish that aren't compatible with your tank occupants.
i'm sure that if i heard what happened i would have told the shop assistant where to go in no uncertain terms! these people are causing our hobby to die out by selling newbies fish they know will have to keep being replaced (probably causing the newbie to give up saying "i can't keep fish alive anyway", i've lost count of the number of people who have said this to me when selling their tank/equipment)

 

[Jo]

Your lfs sounds fantastic for newbies AA, I have to admit that the one I went to didn't ask if I had cycled my tank before I bought any fish (luckily I had!)

selling newbies fish they know will have to keep being replaced

You might have hit on something there though, some shops are probably irresponsible enough to want to sell people fish that are going to die so that they have to replace them...I agree that this is mortally wrong and might say something if I saw it happening often in the same shop