I cannot see the thinking behind this?
If you do buy a fish that's too small for your tank your more than likely going to end up with some sort if dificulties, let's not play silly here. Guidelines are only that, guideline, unfortunately, you can go in and buy any fish for any size tank in most fish shops, if you can live with this after you knowing you shouldn't then you crack on and suffer the consequences, talk yourself into getting an oscar for that tank of yours, it seems that's what your trying to do and you obviously don't feel that comfortable about it other wise you wouldn't be asking for help in backing up your thinking. You won't find it with me.
Would you like to see shops refuse to sell people fish who cannot house them properly with adequate filtration? Such as a common plec, oscars, bala's, severum, BGK, red tailed cats, to name but a few fish that I see in every fish shop I go into.
We cannot change the world unless we change ourselves.
I don't want an oscar. Right now 30 inches is the longest tank I can have. No I wouldn't shove an oscar in it. I honestly don't even know what I'd do with a fish that size. I'll stick with my Firemouths and convicts, thank you. Yes, some people would shove an oscar in a 30 gallon tank with the minimum filtration, heating, and very little tank maintenance. So what are you going to do to the person that has an oscar in a 55 gallon aquarium, over filtered, by itself, with sufficient heating and maintenance, get rid of it? It's gonna be too big for your tank? Get that tank with an extra foot of width or else you're being a bad fishkeeper?
The world doesn't progress over night. You can't tell a person who had a red tailed shark that lived happily for their whole life span with no growth stunting in their 25 gallon 2.5 foot tank that they were being inhumane, you can't tell oldschool fish keepers like my aunt and uncle that they've been wrong for the past 20 years. Sure, some of their methods are outdated, but their fish have solemnly experienced shortened life, stunting, and disease. You can't tell a zebra danio enthusiast with seemingly happy fish that only has a 2 foot long tank that their fish will not be happy unless they double their length.
A lot of the things I hear on this forum are seemingly new theories. My first fish tank as a kid most certainly was not 4 feet long. it was more like 36 inches at most. And my older brother always loved zebra danios, we always had a big school of zebra danios. Some of those zebra danios lived at least 5 years, some of them lived a little less. They all seemed happy, none of them were dying and gasping for air on the top of the tank, none of them were being picked on by other fish, they just lived on. And that's the biggest part of living.
If you were locked in a smaller space than what you so prefer, what would be the first thing you'd do? Try to escape, right? Then what? Try to survive? you wouldn't be like "Oh man, my space is too small, this life just isn't worth it" and give up
A lot of these fish aren't even being put in an a space where they -can- survive, the water isn't filtered, the space is way way too small, the water perimeters and are unsightly, you know the drill. So if we give the fish a smaller space to live comfortably, is it really inhumane?
Steering past the idea that this post is telling people to go out and get this fish because other people do worse, looking at people (I've done it too, I'll say it again) who tell people to take fish that they already have, back to the store. Fish that can fit comfortably in the space they can provide, but could use more room. What are the chances they will get a better home when they're resold? Pretty slim, if you ask me. This is not pointing at people who have an oscar in a 30 gallon tank, or have silver dollars in 5 gallons tanks, or have common plecos in 15 gallon tanks. This is pointing at people who have RTBS in 3 foot tanks, zebra danios in 2 foot tanks, ect ect ect
