Things I'd Like To Change About Fishkeeping...

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Fishkeeping is a very enjoyable hobby, but like many pets, fish are at the mercy of their owners. Cruelty is often not adressed very much in fish like it is with other animals like dogs, birds or cats etc, because many people view fish as unimportant or unsuperior to such mammels and animals. There are some really bad issues in fishkeeping, that if i could, i would change in an instant, since they are the cause or one of the major reasons for so much suffering amoungst captive kept/pet fish.
In no particular order, things i'd like to change about fishkeeping;
a. Ban the sale of tanks under 10 or 20gals aimed/advertised for goldfish.
b. Ban the sale of tanks under 2gallons aimed/advertised at keeping betta's in.
c. Reduce the amount of wild caught fish sold in petshops, and increase the amount of funding and research into breeding fish which so far have been unsuccessfully or barely succcessfully bred in captivity.
d. Ban the sale and practise of dyed and tattoed fish.
e. Drastically lower the amount of fish which grow to 2ft or longer sold.
f. Reduce the amount of fish sold which must be kept on their own (like the whale catfish).
g. Although hard to do, inforce some sort of mandatory basic training for all petshop employee's who wish to sell fish to the general public. This would at least help improve the general knowledge of people selling fish and incourage them to learn more.
h. Reduce the amount of tanks under 5gallons sold, and increase the amount of tanks over 20gallons sold.
i. Improve the availability of a wider range of meds and fish foods sold, partcularly anti internal parasite meds and live foods.

By decreasing the amount of very small tanks sold and decreasing the amount of tankbusting fish sold, this would inevitably result in less fish ending up in tanks far too small for them.
By reducing the amount of wild caught fish sold and increasing the funding and research into breeding fish which so far have been barely successfully or altogether unsuccessfully bred in captivity, this would have many bennefets for both the fish involved and the environment. Wild caught fish tend to have very high mortality rates in comparison to captive bred ones and often find it difficult to adjust to aquarium life successfully and happily/healthily- by reducing fish taken from the wild, it would overal improve the wild ecosystems and take the pressure off them to survive amoungst our often over-plundering of their fish stocks.
By reducing the amount of fish that must be kept of their own due to various reasons, this would help prevent people from putting them into community tanks so often (which the vast majority of keepers seem to have or plan on having).
Banning tattoed/dyed fish, betta jars and goldfish bowls/tanks too small for any goldfish or betta would improve the quality of life for all the fish involved.
And perhaps by improving lfs/lps staff knowledge by introducing some sort of basic mandatory training, less fish overal would end up in unsuitable tank setups.
edit: Oh and with the meds and food thing, i say this because there is an extremely limited range of decent anti internal parasite meds sold in the UK, which is a problem since internal parasites in fish are becomming more and more common now days. With the increase in the variety of fish being sold all the time, the need fo live foods becomes all the more important as there are many widely sold fish now days which need live foods to live of to have any decent chance of survival in the long term before they can be moved onto dead/dried foods (and even then, not all fish can be moved onto such foods). Live foods though seem to be the least commonly sold type of food apart from except feeder fish.

Would what you change about fishkeeping?

 

[SamUK]

great ideas.


and the thing is i think it could all be achieved by one organisation like the RSPCA but they dont seem to care.

 

[geo7x]

I have to say I agree with everything you have said there

and I cant think of anything apart from what you have said now

although there are 2 fish id like to have taken 'off the shelves' apart from if someone wants to order them in especially and has the right conditions for them:

Red Tailed Catfish
Pagnasius Catfish
Bala Sharks
Giant Gouramis

And Im sure there are loads more but thats off the top of my head lol.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I have to say I agree with everything you have said there

and I cant think of anything apart from what you have said now

although there are 2 fish id like to have taken 'off the shelves' apart from if someone wants to order them in especially and has the right conditions for them:

Red Tailed Catfish
Pagnasius Catfish
Bala Sharks
Giant Gouramis

And Im sure there are loads more but thats off the top of my head lol.

I agree with the Red Tailed Catfish and Pangasius catfish being banned from general sale to the public, but not Bala Sharks and perhaps not Giant Gourami's. With bala sharks it is entirely possible to keep them well, as 5-6ft long by 2ft wide tanks are commonly sold in many places across the country and if you have the money, then all is well. Plus its not that difficult to keep such a size tank. I know numerous people who have been able to house bala sharks in the right setups, but i do agree that the amount of bala sharks sold should be reduced (not banned) overal. I don't know about giant gourami's though, as the estimates for their max size seems to vary wildly.
For most fish that grow to 3ft long though, you are looking at at least a 10ft long by 3.5ft to 4ft wide tank, which is simply not a size tank that most people can afford let alone accomodate in their homes. For a red tailed catfish you are probably looking at a 5-6ft wide tank which is 12ft long.

edit: sp

 

[Josiah]

I agree and dis-agree, what about people like us that know what they are doing and house fish properly, if they ban arowanas(and I can't think of anymore right now) people would be mad, I think they just need to get a system which you must prove that you can house the animal you're getting.

 

[SuperColey1]

I agree and dis-agree, what about people like us that know what they are doing and house fish properly, if they ban arowanas(and I can't think of anymore right now) people would be mad, I think they just need to get a system which you must prove that you can house the animal you're getting.

They have 2 x 14" pangasius with 1 x 12" Arrowana and 2 x 12" common plecs all in a Jewel 280Ltr tank in my local P@H. I think you should add banning P@H to that list.

On the system front, remember you used to have to have a licence to own a dog in the UK, meaning if you were found guilty of mistreating then they could take the licence away, much like they do if you are found breaking the law in a car. What did the government do?

Got rid of the licence, and now anyone can get a dog and kill it, then buy another and kill it and so on.

 

[andywg]

c. Reduce the amount of wild caught fish sold in petshops, and increase the amount of funding and research into breeding fish which so far have been unsuccessfully or barely succcessfully bred in captivity.

Is that truly necessary?

Take the Cardinal tetra. I have no problems with it being wild sourced. Millions, and possibly billions of these fish die every year when the floodwaters recede. Collecting a few thousand of them when the waters are high is going to have no detrimental affect on them in the wild.

Also, a number of fish (probably most) exhibit little to no parental care over spawns of fry. Taking the juveniles can give a better chance at life. The taking of mature adults should be closely monitored, however.

Wit the exception being the recent microrasborus species (which hasn't even been described yet) the aquarium trade has accounted for very little in the way of causing animals to become endangered or extinct. Thew only other popular fish which has had its number plummet is the zebra plec, but that is more to do with the flooding of its natural habitat to create a hydroelectric damn than collectors' actions.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Like Andy, the one about taking fish from the wild was the only one I was inclined to quibble about. I think I would agree for marine fish, where there is more evidence that the collecting is actually doing some damage, but in the case of most tropical fish, there is a case to be made out for fishcollectors acting as guardians of the wild. There are a very few cases where the hobby seems to have contributed to the decline of a tropical fish species (
?cherry barbs, possibly khuulie loaches), but more often than this the reports of fish collectors have served to draw the world's attention to far more serious environmental problems.

What is needed is the sort of sourcing information and licensing that we are at least in theory supposed to demand for tropical timber products, not outright banning. If local people can't make money from their surroundings by either hunting or collecting for the pet trade, the risk is that they will need to make it in some less sustainable way. In some countries, this is clearly already happening, we can't get zebra plecos from Brazil and a good thing too.

Having said this, there are of course other good reasons to encourage more local (as in: near the final destination) captive breeding: it means fewer individual fish will be subjected to the stress of capture and long transports (but clearly not if they are to be transported from Singapore to the UK), also that the fish will be better acclimatised to local water conditions. I knew there was a reason I need another fry tank.....

 

[fishboy619]

i compleatly aggre with what is said, fish keeping needs some "rules", just a shame people with the power to do somethind (rspca) just dont care enough.just to back up, i think all wild fish caught should be montiered and concentrate on breeding them instead, big fish such as bala sharks and RTBS should be limited to aviod beginners being taken for a fool by employees who sell them to the public who say they have 20 gallon tanks, and general care in fish shops should be improved loads more to aviod death. small tanks should be stopped and the horrid goldfish bowl should be smashed to pieces! also fish that need special requirments and are difficult to look after need to be told to buyers to avoid poorly kept fish.overall people should be made awear that fish are living things and arent just accessories to a home.people need to wake up and do something about it, these animal protester that are outraged at guinea pig farms and lab testing (which i also hate) should concentrate on fish aswell.every fish bought should come with a sheet to explain how to keep them ect that is compulsery to hand out buy fish shops.
(sorry i ranted on a bit, i just so agree and it really hacks me off that people just dont care about fish.)

 

[dwarfgourami]

One thing I would like to see more of is shops that actively seek out more interesting small fish species to sell. Like Wholesale Tropicals in London, I think what they're doing is really great. If people could get the idea that small fish are not limited to 9 or 10 ordinary boring species, that there are lots of different livebearers and rasboras and danios that you've never even heard of.

And what I would also like to see is more hobbyists breeding fish suitable for most people's tanks and sending them into circulation. Nano fish for nano tanks! That reminds me, I need another fry tank.....

 

[t1tanrush]

I keep my 3 male bettas in 1 gallon, and many betta enthusiasts agree that 1g is the minimum tank size for a betta. This is not cruel treatment on my part, it is an proper hom for a betta. By getting rid of less than 2 gallons for bettas and tanks that are small and advertised for goldfish, you make it impossible to find a tank that is small and has the air pump, light etc already in the kit, and then people won't want to buy a fish because they can't get a setup for 20$, they have to pay more to get lights, plants, rocks, filters, all of this...

 

[t.ropical_m.istx3]

that will never happen. i love many of the ideas, but it would never happen. and even if it did, people wouldn't buy fish because it was too expensive. when people think fish they think "easy keeper pet". and my bettas are in one gallons and they do great. i have a 10g tank and everything's happy in it. as long as you know what you're doing, things seem to be fine.

 

[qoftheq]

Well, if people buy fewer fish, but fewer fish are subject to maltreatment and bad conditions, I don't really see the bad there. I maintain that if you aren't willing to invest the money to buy a proper goldfish tank, then you aren't ready to take care of what could eventually be an enormous fish.
A few things I'd like to add to the list:

- Banning, aside from special order, the sale of common plecos or any plecostomus that gets to a similar size.
- Banning the giving away of fish as "prizes" for contests at fairs (know this isn't really part of the fish trade, but its a horrible practice)

 

[LisaLQ]

I keep my 3 male bettas in 1 gallon...(snip)....it is an proper hom for a betta.

I always thought that a. 3g was the minimum, and b. you should never ever keep males together. I dont have the experience to say that for sure (not a betta fan myself), but I'm sure someone more into bettas might be able to help you out on that one, as it sounds a bit likely you've been given some bad info there

If I were in charge of the world for a day lol I'd make sure there was mandatory labelling of fish in LFS with both common name and latin name, adult size, care needs and minimum tank size needed - preferably controlled in some way (ie had to get their labels from one body who would have the correct info).

I'd personally ban anything under 15g too, but no doubt wouldn't be too popular then...maybe just remove them from general sale so that newcomers/kids cant get these tiny tanks and put a big community of commonly found fish in them, and that way as the smaller tanks weren't totally banned - it'd mean the betta breeders and other people needing tiny tanks could still have theirs made or make their own.

- Banning, aside from special order, the sale of common plecos or any plecostomus that gets to a similar size.
- Banning the giving away of fish as "prizes" for contests at fairs (know this isn't really part of the fish trade, but its a horrible practice)

With all due respect, there are far more fish out there that get much bigger than common plecs. Even gibbies get bigger than commons

As a common can go in an easily manageable tank size (4ft x 18" x 18") that most folks could fit in their room, I dont see why banning them would be fair?

Many of the plecs that get bigger also take years and years to get there. Biggest plec I've seen photos of was an L203, 70cm, and yet at a growth rate of 1" a year - is it really that big a concern? Plenty of time to get a bigger tank or rehome - unlike quick growing massive predatory fish.

Dont ban commons though. They're tiddlers compared to the main offenders.

In the UK fish prizes are illegal.

 

[cheesy feet]

There is no way you could change some of those things,although i agree about it.It would cost millions,the fish industry(or whatever it is lol)would go down hill,no1 would want to buy fish anymore because of the image that it's hard and you need a big tank.Plus quite a few people who start fish keeping go into bigger fishes.It wouldn't be fun without them!I totally agree with goldfish for sale at fairs,most people who 'win' them probly don't have fish tanks !