Are fish tanks cruel?

Are fish tanks cruel? It depends. If the fish tank is too small for the fish or the equipment in it and water changes all in combination aren’t giving the right quality of water, heat and light then that’s cruel for at least those species of fish that aren’t being catered for. Fish also have the right to hidey holes where they can enjoy their privacy for the species that need it. Of course, some individuals within a species might need it more than others. Fish differ not only between species but within a species. They even differ in their behaviour within one spawning of fry. Such is life, for organisms that reproduce sexually. It is one of the so-called “joys of sex” that Alex Comfort neglected to mention as he was more concerned with the prurient. In fact, I hope my readers haven’t even heard of him.

BB Radio – einfach der beste Mix

The mix of fish is what people tend to get wrong the most though. Putting together fish of different sizes so that the smaller ones end up getting eaten is not fair on them. Also, you should not put fin-nippers or biters like barbs or puffer fish or overly playful fish like botias in with delicate fish which don’t like to be chased around, like discus or mormyrids. Everyone should know not to mix two male Bettas, but you could have a similar result over a longer period with a lot of kinds of cichlids. When you breed fish not taking care to have males and females from separate bloodstock, this also can lead to unintentional cruelty. That is because the number of young with genetic issues and deformities is likely to be higher.

Nuh’un gemisi sizin evdedir

If you avoid those problems, there is nothing intrinsically cruel about the aquarium hobby. Our well-maintained aquarium fishes have a much better quality of life much better than that in the wild. Whole species are now being maintained in hobbyist collections which are extinct in the wild. The German hobby and Hans-Georg Evers in particular brought the Noah’s Ark capability of our hobby to peoples attention already in the 1980s.

Many livebearers and even cherry barbs are maintained despite habitat destruction in captive collections.  Other hobbyists have gone so far as to describe species to science which they have found wither coming through trade channels or in their own explorations of the Amazon.

The image shows Brachyrhamdia marthae, named by my old friend and mentor Dr. David D. Sands in honour of his then wife. David Sands used to write many articles promoting non-cruel fishkeeping, avoiding for instance keeping very large fish like red-tailed catfishes in small fish tanks where they would not thrive.

I hope some aquarists reading this will aspire to be part of some cottage conservation project, and dedicate some nice tanks to this idea.

Aqua cuna vitae, ager nobis

So, you see why it depends. Depending on what you do with your tank it can be heaven or hell for your piscine companions. In itself it is not cruel, it is a set of panes of glass.

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If an enemy ran up to a tank and tried to put C4s on it, what would the tank driver do?

Someone asked me to answer this as a fish tanks question.  It doesn’t look like the fish kind of tank, but if it is, then I imagine the tank owner will remove himself from the vicinity as quickly as possible on seeing the C4s, whatever they are.  If there are irreplaceable fish inside he might try to net them and carry them away in a carrier bag with water. For sure he or she will look for a replacement aquarium quickly. Obviously it’s not a situation any fishkeeper hopes for.

Supplementary question

A Quoran called Patrick Zhong then replied to the above with the question “Please inform, how do you drive a fish tank?”.

 

I replied “Very carefully, otherwise all the water slops out when you accelerate, brake, or turn corners.” Patrick then said “And how do I safely turn the fish tank in place at high rotational speeds to generate a whirlpool without killing all the fish?” My answer to this is as follows:
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Over the Top Fish Tank

Original playout date: 30 October 2007
Duration: 1:30

We are looking at one of my fishtanks from the top as the fish get fed. It’s actually a nice angle to watch fish from.
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Tropical fish dancing to Russian folksong

Playout date: 24 November 2006
Duration: 3:14
Camera: Panasonic DMZ -FZ30
Post Production: Windows Movie Maker – slight use
Location: Office
Other people featured: None
Genre: Fish
Music used: Garmoshka or “my concertina” by Golontseva
Languages used: Russian
Animals/plants featured:
Other remarks:

The film shows two tanks which I had at the office in the park at Jazdow. One of these ha the slightly larger fishes you see at the front. I cannot remember the species of barbs that the big ones were, but they were great favorites of mine. The second tank contains my Ameca splendens which was a breeding project, in with them were some clown loaches which did not spoil at all the breeding project.

If you are interested in fishkeeping in a reverse “Noah’s Ark” kind of way, keeping species  endangered by habitat destruction in the wild safe in aquarium populations, let me know. It is not a huge investment of space, time and money.