What Have I Let Myself In For!

[k17sty]

Fella your misunderstanding alot here. .

I didnt buy one fish to feed another. There was no mistake in my sale. The Birchir was in the smaller tank for 4 days till his own tank was ready. As i said i thought if i had kept him well fed then the chances of him eating my small fish would have been slim.

This current choice was also researched as has been the red tailed cat. . . you dont know how long i have been fish keeping, how many tanks i have or indeed what size my tanks are.

 

[Bloo]

Far be it for me to actually say anything, but I think k17sty it all started off on the wrong foot by the way you brought yourself & your actions across in the first post.

You actually made it sound that you didn't know what you were buying, you thought it was cool to "let it loose" and eat your other (implied "pathetic") fish and that you want a "bad ass tank". Given that, how do you honestly think or hoped people would reply ?

 

[k.o.d]

Now, 20+ years on, and having worked in science, education, and with politicians

Lets not open up the whole live feeders debate again, its been done and some people like it and most people (including me) dont.

First things first, I am against feeding live fish, we have trained marine lionfish to accept dead food, and several oddball specimens that supposedly do not take to prepared frozen foods well, so it can be done but,

1. Please never ever make the assumption that politicians know anything about the outside world, science and education fine, but politicians are something I would keep off the CV
2. How can you give a fish a better chance of natural living in a glass tank in a living room, Jimboo has seen my tanks and can vouch that I have good sized accomodation for my large fish
3. Why are fishkeepers able to give a better life than people who keep cats and dogs? Admittedly I am lucky that I live on a farm estate but my cats and dogs work, the cats catch rats and mice and eat them, we dont feed them in the Spring and Summer because they do that well on a natural diet, the dogs hunt rabbits and hares and they do well too. Is that not the natural way of doing things, personally I believe the BARF ( Google it ) diet is a much more natural and beneficial way of feeding dogs than the processed gruel dogs are expected to Pavlov over. This is more to do with the fact that the majority of people dont associate Sunday lamb roast with the fluffy sheep in the meadow, we are a prepackaged ready to eat society with no real concept of how it gets to our table and would rather feign ignorance than accept the reality
4. At the end of the day it is your opinion, opinions are good but it doesnt mean everyone has to agree with you and carry out your will.


I am passionate about our hobby and think we can do a lot of good, but we also have to accept other people have different ways of looking at things and that Kirsty made a mistake and paid the price

Debates are good, but please dont presume higher morals on the issue

 

[nmonks]

Hello k.o.d,

Actually, you made my case for me. I said most cats and dogs don't have a natural life. Not all. Your's sound to have an excellent life. I think everyone who keeps dogs and cats should allow them this sort of lifestyle. I have no issue with cats hunting mice in the wild. That's nature, and the mice have a chance to escape. Tha's why I don't oppose hunting or fishing. Quite the reverse, I think both a powerful tools for promiting conservation.

What I specifically mean with regard to comparisons of aquarium fish, is fish get to socialise with their own species and express their natural behaviours. They aren't neutered or kept "in solitary confinement". OK, some fish are, but at its best, an aquarium lets fish be with their own kind and breed. To me, that's closer to a natural life than being a neutered cat or dog that does nothing more than follow its owner about the house.

Opinions and morals are subjective, you are quite right. But science isn't. Fish feel pain and get stressed, that's science. If a fishkeeper is fine with that, then that's a valid opinion or moral slant, but it cannot be defended as "natural" or "painless" because it isn't.

Cheers,

Neale

3. Why are fishkeepers able to give a better life than people who keep cats and dogs? Admittedly I am lucky that I live on a farm estate but my cats and dogs work, the cats catch rats and mice and eat them, we dont feed them in the Spring and Summer because they do that well on a natural diet, the dogs hunt rabbits and hares and they do well too.
4. At the end of the day it is your opinion, opinions are good but it doesnt mean everyone has to agree with you and carry out your will.

Debates are good, but please dont presume higher morals on the issue

 

[k.o.d]

That was a good answer, thank you with no emotivity which was even better on a sensitive subject

I did say I was lucky in way we can live and allow the dogs and cats to live relatively natural lives ( though I am pretty sure Jimboo didnt think so as he drove his very nice sports car over all the potholes and divots after he had just waxed it )

I still think that the interactions and associations in a glass tank may differ from the wild but a good point nonetheless.

I have never defended feeder fish as 'painless' because by its very act it will cause pain to the eaten fish in some degree or other. Mistakenly putting an out and out pred in with community fish is a genuine error and although the post was made in a light tone, there was acceptance that they had made a mistake, but it is 'natural'. Did you see the excellent programme 'Equator' on Discovery Animal Planet? There was a fantastic arapaima gigas eating fairly large cichlids ( if my memory serves ), now that was brutal, but it was as natural as you can get

We feed our arowana on crickets, mealworms and other live foods, we feed our geckos live locusts and crickets because they wont eat anything that doesnt move ( and we have tried )

There is a time and a place for live feeding, but we will not allow fish that will only eat live fish in the house, its not from a moralistic point but from the fact that you can bring pathogens into the tank.

Wouldnt it be a boring world if everyone thought the same

 

[nmonks]

I actually think we agree on this 100%

- Live foods are essential for some species
- Live feeder fish can transmit pathogens to specimen fish

Whether or not there's a morality issue, it's just not safe feeding feeder fish to another fish. The risk from mealworms, crickets, etc. is close to zero. But from mass produced feeders taken from overcrowded holding tanks... I wouldn't risk a fish I cared about that way.

I've weaned several "difficult" species onto dead foods over the years. Seahorses, gar, lionfish, glassfish, bumblebee gobies. I'm sure there are species that cannot be weaned onto dead foods. Pipefish and needlefish would be on that list, I think. You're right about reptiles; I've looked after Anolis spp., and they definitely were live food only. So I'm not against live food, quite the reverse. But I think it's an issue that should be reflected on, and not skated over blithely.

I also agree a glass tank isn't the wild. It is probably possible to recreate the wild in an aquarium, but the stocking density would have to be very low (read: boring). Hence we make judgement calls on what works and what doesn't. Subjective... sure.

Cheers,

Neale

We feed our arowana on crickets, mealworms and other live foods, we feed our geckos live locusts and crickets because they wont eat anything that doesnt move ( and we have tried )

There is a time and a place for live feeding, but we will not allow fish that will only eat live fish in the house, its not from a moralistic point but from the fact that you can bring pathogens into the tank.

 

[k.o.d]

Yep, looking at it we do.

Didnt really mean to barge in with 2 feet ( as usual ) but it really does p me off when someone starts a moralistic crusade because they dont believe in the ethics of feeding live food without fully understanding the reasons and needs behind it ( in some cases ) and thinks everyone else should feel the same, then gets indignant when people reason back at them.

So thank you, it was nice to discuss with someone who was not emotive or you should do it my way but did put a good argument for his stance, am not argumentative ( but dont ask my wife ) but I do like to see how people think and react.

Our Antennata and Fuzzy dwarf would only initially eat ghost shrimp, but now they come to the top of the tank to tell us they want feeding.

 

[Fella]

Fella your misunderstanding alot here. .

I didnt buy one fish to feed another. There was no mistake in my sale. The Birchir was in the smaller tank for 4 days till his own tank was ready. As i said i thought if i had kept him well fed then the chances of him eating my small fish would have been slim.

This current choice was also researched as has been the red tailed cat. . . you dont know how long i have been fish keeping, how many tanks i have or indeed what size my tanks are.

You're right, I do not know how long you have been keeping fish, and what size your tanks are. I never assumed that. Apologies if I gave the impression that I was making assumptions along those lines.

I cannot understand how you can explain that you researched the fish thoroughly, and yet the fish went on to eat other live fish in a community style setting? If that was not your intention, and yet the bichir ate other fish, are we to assume your bichir is unusual? I have certainly read in my limited fishkeeping experience of bichirs eating fish small enough to fit in their mouths.

Just after clarification, as you directed your post at me.

 

[Nina]

Nothing to do with the debate but in relation to an earlier post regarding snakehead size.....

There are a couple of dwarf species which max out at around 6" so not all of them get huge.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Unless someone was really, really not thinking when they posted, the quote

Yes because i solely put him in that tank to eat my fish.

Springs horribly towards the debate... Quite aside from the 'moral' and 'natural' issues, assuming the bichir is at the relatively small size senegals are when you buy them (~4"), it attempting to eat something as comparatively large as a swordtail, or as spiky as most algae eaters are is dangerous for the bichir.

 

[Nevergone815]

for starters, i am FOR feeder fish. but i would keep them in a seperate tank and "raise" them myself. just buy a few feeder guppies and watch the numbers grow. this will allow you to control the tank and know if there is an illness present and you can treat it accordingly. people say it is creul to feed them because fish feel pain, well doesn't the rabbits and mice feel pain when your dog or cat kills them. don't get me wrong, i let my cats eat live mice, i have no problem with this. and if i had the means to have my dog on a more natural diet i would. also when it comes to reptiles, i think that they only eat live foods because most (correct me if i'm wrong) if not all use heat receptors to sense prey, if it doesn't move, it doesn't kow it's there. but what i'm saying is that although the dog and cat diet is natural why can't a fish live off of other fish. in the wild fish general eat (to their liking) anything they come across as food. you can't tell me that a large fish will go passed a smaller fish and say "hi george, how's your day?" and carry on. it would eat it!

but i don't want to contribute to the whole feeder vs other food debate... the real issue is what k17sty posted

i have to defend k17sty though. i think that his wording was wrong and what he was saying is that he made a mistake. he thought that it would be ok for a short time if it was well fed. it was a mistake and as long as he learns from it, i don't see it as much of a problem. even though i have researched a fish thoroughly i have found that i ALWAYS wind up doing something wrong. since you can never fully simulate it's natural environment EVERY pet needs to adapt. k17sty, next time remember the rule is if it fits in its mouth... its LUNCH!!! i do not fault you for the mistake, just learn from it.

 

[nmonks]

Well, okay, I will correct you.

Most reptiles do not sense prey by heat. Obviously a heat sensing organ would be useless to the vegetarian species and of no particular value to those feeding on cold-blooded prey like insects and frogs. It also wouldn't work at all under water, since currents would carry the thermal signal away. Hence, tortoises, terrapins, turtles, crocodiles, lizards, and most snakes all lack the ability to use heat perception to find food.

Only the pit vipers have thermoreceptors, organs that detect heat at a distance. These organs are the "pits" from which they get their name. The most familiar pit vipers are perhaps the rattlesnakes.

The majority of snakes hunt their prey by a combination of smell, "sound", and vision. Snakes sample the air by pulling air into the mouth where the Jacobsen's organ allows for improved olfaction. While they don't really have ears as such, so probably can't hear sound as we know it, snakes are very sensitive to vibrations in the ground and will use that sense to localise and track prey. Snakes have surprisingly good eyesight, and this is used to target the prey for the final strike.

Fooling captive snakes such as boas and garter snakes therefore relies on stimulating one or more of these sense. Wiggling dead food seductively or smearing it in the 'taste' of something they normally eat are the sorts of tricks used.

Cheers,

Neale

also when it comes to reptiles, i think that they only eat live foods because most (correct me if i'm wrong) if not all use heat receptors to sense prey, if it doesn't move, it doesn't kow it's there.

 

[Pufferpro]

8)

 

[nmonks]

When I was doing my animal behaviour class at university, one of the professors put this question: which is better, a zoo or a circus? Specifically, for lions and tigers. The answer is, it depends. For lions, the answer is a zoo. In the wild, male lions basically don't do anything until they see another male, and female lions don't do anything until they see prey. Their natural behaviour outside of those events is to sit around doing nothing. Since they scavenge as well as hunt, if dead food is dumped in front of them, the only behaviour that is triggered is the scvaneging one; the hunting behaviour is completely dormant. They don't get "frustrated" by the lack of prey, because until they see prey, they don't "feel the urge" to go hunting. Hence, a zoo (more or less) provides them with "a natural environment" provided an extra male or a herd of gazelles doesn't show up.

For tigers, the answer is a circus. Tigers never sit about, they are constantly marching around their territory. They expect to be in a changing environment and need to be constantly stimulated. Provided animal welfare is high, a tiger in a busy circus where it is doing stuff all the time will be experiencing a more "natural" environment than a tiger stuck in a small enclosure at a zoo.

In short, everything is about context in animal behaviour, and the only thing that is always wrong is trying to use human perceptions as the benchmark. Animals don't think or feel the way we do, hence saying something like "my pufferfish is lonely and needs a tankmate" or "my gar needs the thrill of hunting live food once in a while" is unhelpful.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Pufferpro]