Moralities of keeping large fish

[African_Fever]

Just wanted to get some others opinions on the moralities of keeping fish that you KNOW will outgrow any tank you have now, with the 'hope' that you'll 'someday' get a tank big enough to keep an adult (or in all honesty know you'll never be able to provide a proper home for). Prime examples, bala sharks, oscars (and many other CA and SA cichlids, sorry guys), arrowanas, many of the SA and CA cats, and my BIGGEST peeve, real sharks. The LFS here just got in a black tip reef shark (yes, the real deal- and the worst part, he's a good friend who got into fish with me, and ended up going the direction of staff->owner). It's already ~18-22" long an in about a 300 gallon tank (I think it's about 6'x2.5'x2'). He has 'plans' of building a bigger tank (he does have a 540 for his RT cats), but really, how many people are going to build a greenhouse over their lagoon for a shark? Now I LOVE sharks more than anyone (hope to one day go to grad school to study them - and touched the second one I ever saw - a scary story for another day), and would absolutely kill to have a tank large enough to house one (MR.3000 ring a bell?). But until I'm ready to turn my entire garage or basement into a reef, there's no way I could ever keep one and feel good about myself (even rather sedentary bamboo sharks that get to 3' get me more than a bit miffed). And not to slam a particular chain store, but what's the deal with the feeding frenzy? Keep a shark that gets to 8-10' (lemon shark, leopard shark) in a tank, and then when it outgrows the tank, then what? 'Hope' some aquarium will pay the huge shipping costs to ship a shark to them? Good luck.

Just on a bit of a rant since the LFS got in their blacktip reef shark and looking for others thoughts on keeping the 'giants' of the aquarium trade.

[Toirtis]

I won't complain about oscars and balas so much (although I think that they are far too commonly offered), but I do have issues with the RTCs, TSNs, iridescent sharks, etc...and the true marine sharks and many of the big groupers, too.....just a shame, as most will end up dead for no good reason. These fish really should be special order only.

[Mighty Prawn]

I know a lot of people "hope" to get bigger tanks, but I don't hope, I do! I still wouldn't get a true monster like a red tailed cat.

I am going to have all my "big" fish, eventually, in, probably, a 2000+ gallon tank. The one I am designing is 10'L x 6'W x 5' high. So really a little over 2200 gallons. A part of me however, still feels a little bad about keeping fish in even a large tank like that. Just because I know the fish I keep in there probably won't ever meet each other in the wild, and the decor will certainly be far from what they would have naturally.

What really gets me, is how Pisces has something like a 10 gallon tank, MAYBE 15, with approximately 10-15 red tailed cats in it. They've been there for a while now, and thank goodness very few have sold. I just can't believe the failure to research the fish ordered, especially because I am pretty sure only 1% of Calgary's fish keeping population would even have a tank big enough. And 1% is probably a high estimate!

-Hideo

[RD.]

Unfortunately this goes far beyond some of the larger catfish & shark species. I hate to even imagine how many people in AB alone have tanks that are far too small for their inhabitants, such as a 7-8 male front being kept in a 29 gallon tank (along with several other Tangs), and I've actually seen this. Or how about just packing them in like sardines, until one has a massive die off from stress and disease. Here's a prime example of that, with some of these fish already pushing 7-8". (an actual 125 gallon set up)

125 gallon

1 Aulonocara sp. "Stuartgranti Maleri" (Chipoka)

1 Altolamprologus calvus (Chaitika)

1 Epalzeorhynchos frenatus "Rainbow Shark"

4 Synodontis multipunctatus

1 Sciaenochromis fryeri (Maleri Is.) Iceberg Electric Blue

1 Labidochromis caeruleus (Lion's Cove I) Electric Yellow

2 Pseudotropheus saulosi

1 Pseudotropheus sp. "Acei" (Msuli)

1 Protomelas taeniolatus (Likoma Is.) Tangerine Tiger

1 Aulonocara sp. Orange-Red

2 Julidochromis regani (Kipili)

1 Aulonocara stuartgranti (Chiwindi) Blue Neon

1 Haplochromis sp. "Thick Skin"

1 Chilotilapia rhoadesii

6 Cyphotilapia frontosa

2 Aulonocara stuartgranti "German Red"

1 ''OB Peacock Hybrid''

1 Aulonocara jacobfreibergi "Eureka"

1 Otopharynx lithobates

2 Protomelas taeniolatus (Red Empress)

2 Aulonocara maulana

1 Aulonocara stuartgranti (Ngara) Flametail

1 Dimidiochromis compressiceps

1 Parancistrus aurantiacus

1 Ancistrus sp.(3)

2 Botia macracanthus

1 Cyprichromis leptosoma (Mpulungu)

1 Cyrtocara moorii

3 Altolamprologus compressiceps yellow

1 Cynotilapia afra (Mbweca)

1 Melanochromis joanjohnsonae

1 Melanochromis auratus

1 Placidochromis Phenochilus

1 Mylochromis lateristriga

1 Haplochromis sp. "Ruby Green"

1 Synodontis ocellifer

1 Protomelas insignus

1 Labidochromis sp. "Hongi"

1 Pundamilia pundamilia

2 Protomelas insignus

1 Sunshine Peacock

If I added correctly, that's 58 fish packed into a 125, not to mention the incompatibility issues between some of these species. This tank looked more like a herd of cattle, than a fish tank.

While it would be nice if some of the true monster sized fish were special order only, I think there's a far bigger problem that takes place out there in fish land every day of the week. A visit to your local WalMart should put things into perspective.

[Mighty Prawn]

I usually don't interject or chase after customers at a LFS, but I did a couple of times at Pisces, for a over stock issue like you were mentioning. This guy was asking the kid for some kind of fish or snail that would eat waste from the other fish, cuz he was tired of having to vacuum every couple of days. He said he had a 55 gallon tank, and had about 30 neon's, 20 varied guppies, 3 dwarf puffers, about 15 boesmani rainbows, 7 or 8 black skirt tetras, 3 bala sharks, 3 clown loaches, 2 comets!!!, 2 silver dollars, 2 hatchetfish, 1 tangerine dream discus, a cichlid he didn't know the name of, 2 kissing gouramis and 2 common plecos and a CLOWN FISH. Some of you may have heard this story before, but figure it relates. As he was telling the kid at the store this, and I was jotting these all down quickly on my clipboard after I heard him say dwarf puffers... So the store clerk said he probably would be best with some trapdoor snails or even pond snails, but that the pleco's might take care of it, too. So the guy says he'll look around for a bit, and than get some snails. I didn't want to be a jerk so I didn't interrupt the kid telling him this, but I went up to him after to offer some advice. He looked pretty "well-to-do", by that I mean rich, and he was... So anyways, I told him about this site first of all, and reccomended he come to some CAS meetings, and asked where he got all those fish, to which he replied Petland, here, Gold's, Petsmart, Big Als etc. So I asked him how he chose his inhabitants and he just said he picked the things he liked, and that Petsmart told him he could pretty much have "like 100 fish in a tank that big". So I asked about the size of his couple of monsters, and the pleco's he said we almost a foot. I just about started laughing at the whole thing, but just educated him a bit instead. He was really appreciative, and ended up deciding to go and buy a couple 20 gallons and another 55.

Anyways I also told him to return the clownfish to big al's but he said it had actually died. To which I told him it's a saltwater fish and how important it is not to house them in freshwater.

He's also SUPPOSED to be joining CAS and AA, he was impressed how helpful I was being, and if he'd known it was so bad for the fish to be so crowded he would have just got more tanks.

So long story short, always help out clueless people at a LFS, and maybe get a new CAS member ;-)

-Hideo

[Vapor]

I kind of look at people who keep too large a fish in small tanks the same as I do people who keep large dogs in an apartment. :boom: They really don't care about the animal or fish itself it is just something to show off once in a while. :grr:

[Krystle]

I quit my last job over this... I got really sick of getting dirty looks from my livestock manager at the large chain petstore I worked at giving me dirty looks whenever I advised customers against keeping irridescent sharks in inappropriate sized tanks and goldfish and other fish in bowls because I was lowering her sales.

The downright wrong advice my co-workers and manager would give out to inexperienced fishkeepers absolutely astounded me. I know the following is a bit long, but it's worth a read.

There was this one day that a woman came in saying she needed to buy some bottom feeders and an algae eater for her tank. Now, please don't take me for one of those pushy LFS employees but I really do care for the animals and their welfare, as well as just really like talking fish with people I asked her what kind she wanted and she said she didn't know, she'd just bought her tank like 2 days ago, and petsmart told her she needed to get some bottom feeders, a betta, and an algae eater for it. I cringed a little inside, and then explained to her how a newly established tank will not need an algae eater at all, since there won't be any algae for the little guy to eat for a few weeks atleast, and even then a good algae scrubber can do the job too. As far as the bottom feeders went, if she had so much uneaten food that she *needed* bottom feeders she was definitely overfeeding, and actually adding any fish would be a bad move at this point until her tank became a little more established.

She did already have fish in it to start the cycle, and was curious what kind of fish would be a good mix in her tank. When I asked her what size it was she showed me a 2.5 gallon minibow. The fish she already had in it was a female betta, and she said she needed a male betta cuz petsmart told her they'd be fine together. I explained to her about bettas' agressive natures and how that would be a VERY bad idea, especially in a tank that small without hiding places etc. The lady was happy to listen and learn, and wasn't upset when I was talking to her at all.

Just then my livestock manager piped up (I guess she was pissed cuz I wasn't just feeding this woman more crap advice to pump up sales) and went on to explain to the woman and I in a very condescending tone that "male and female bettas CAN live together because in the wild the male chooses his mate, so there's a good chance he'll like her and they'll get along just fine."

:cuss: Complete and utter bull, and she just shoveled it out like that to the customers in an attempt to make more sales. Now, i'm not sure if the people at petsmart's downright wrong advice was from greed or just ignorance, but for God's sake these are living animals! Don't we have a responsibility to these lives to ensure that the people caring for them and giving out advice on them to the public have the slightest clue what they're talking about?!? This kind of thing happened on a DAILY basis too! Absolutely bogus "facts" given out by the people who were supposed to know their stuff.

Fishkeepers should definitely do their own research before bringing new fish home, of course, but the truth is most of them don't, and quite often who do they go to first with their questions? The pet store employees.

The livestock manager at that location had also stocked her own and several of the staff member's tanks. They almost all contained irridescent sharks since those were her favorite. One day she was going on about her school of ID's and all the other fish she had cramed in her tnk (various african cichlids) and I remarked that she must have a very big tank! She agreed, it was after all, a 33 gallon. That was the largest tank any of them owned and they all had ID's. It made me quite sick.

I brought up designing and putting up a poster by the fish section that would have some facts about goldfish and general care requirements like a lot of responsible pet stores are doing nowadays. I thought she had said yes I could, so I got back to her a couple days later about it and she told me that no way, she had definitely not agreed to that, because then her sales would go down and there was no way she was going to deny a customer a sale. Nevermind that it says in the training manual that if we as employees feel the animal's welfare is being compromised (i.e. 3 goldfish in a bowl) have the right to void the warranty on the fish after trying to dissuade the customer from purchasing said fish. According to the manual, the animals came first. In practice it was all about the cash. I quit immediately after that, I couldn't work for a place that valued money over life and was that blatant about it.

sorry for the rant, guys o.o had that on my chest for a while lol. Now I'm looking for a new job, and am considering waitressing lol. If you know anyone looking for a waitress with a soft spot for fish on the northside let me know :P

[Mighty Prawn]

Soft spot for fish, hmm? May I suggest Yuji Oda's Furusato? IMO it's worthy of the name, which means homeland. While there are quite a few japanese places in the world with the same name, it's still fitting. Furusato is probably the best sushi/sashimi you can get outside of Vancouver. And unfortunately, that's the one thing I find Calgary is sorely missing compared to Edmonton, is fantastic sashimi. (I don't like sushi, vinegared rice is disgusting) I heard a rumour that Furusato was going to be sold to some white dude. If that's the case, I expect it has gone downhill, much like every other non-japanese owned place. The only downside is their other offerings are not as fantastic, albeit still decent. When I went their onigiri was dissapointing, though their yakizakana is delicious. (Though for me, it's hard to mess that one up) The most dissapointing for me are the noodles, out of all the popular options (soba, udon, ramen, somen and yakisoba) I only really liked their ramen, all the times I went it was good, I had shoyu and shio with chasumen, nothing else. I preferred the shio, but, for me the taste of pork just perfectly matches the salt, rather than the soya based shoyu. Another decent dish are both yakitori and tonkatsu, but both of those are also hard to mess up. Their tempura is also okay, but let me just say something of their other "hard to mess up" deep fried category; inari. Now, I don't enjoy sushi, but inari is one of the few types I do like. Their tofu was overcooked both times I tried. Everything else, though was good. But I'll stick to Calgary and Vancouver for my non-sashimi dishes.

Now I will talk a bit about the best part, the sashimi itself! The anago and unagi were both delicious. My fav, hamachi, was fan-friggen-tastic, and before I left I begged the chef to let me try the cheek and tail. He was impressed with my japanese so served it up no charge! I think that was the highlight of my entire life of eating aside from a couple instances in Vancouver. The ika was good. The ikura was okay, but I generally don't enjoy it due to the nori. The kazunoko was lackluster, though I suspect it was not their fault. I can only handle so much sushi before everything tastes gross to me. It just makes me gag. Why vinegar, I mean, really... The maguro was as expected pretty good, but never as good as vancouver. The saba was especially delicious, along with the tako, which is my favourite after hamachi. And though I never eat it, I always order tamago and feed it to my guest, and tell them how to tell if it is good. Apparently it was, which I certainly believed. The toro, another fav of mine was also good, and much fresher than any other land locked place I've been to.

Another downside is when I went, they didn't have real wasabi, just a 50/50 paste, which is better than most, but still tastes nothing like the real thing. A shame. I like to follow up my meal with a few shavings of wasabi on gari. Mmmmmmm spicy.

Anyways, that was quite the rant for a specific question and I barely touched on it. Way off topic, too... Anyways, try Furusato, and give me good deals ;-) I'm kidding of course.

-Hideo

[Froggie]

The availability of some extremely large species does bother me. I feel that many of them should be obtainable by special order only. I’m not talking about large cichlids or such either.

Take for example the fact that one can get A. spatula, the alligator gar, from Big Als in Edmonton at the moment? That’s a fish with an extremely rapid growth rate and which has the potential to reach 10ft! I sincerely doubt that there are enough people in Alberta whom have large enough tanks to house every one of those fish as adults.

[Toirtis]

Take for example the fact that one can get A. spatula, the alligator gar, from Big Als in Edmonton at the moment?

Actually, those are florida gars, just mislabelled...I saw them this morning while I was there.