Do you ever feel bad about..

[leedsrhinojohn]

Alright friend take a break...

No animosity or anger intended mate just replying to your post

 

[cFloor]

Yes, I honestly wrestle with this all the time.

 

[Punchanello]

I am sure you care for your fish as passionately as I and most people do, but I have yet to see a valid justification for keeping fish, I cant even justify keeping fish myself but I can live with it.

It's funny but people who don't keep fish often have less of a moral problem with keeping them than people who do. Mostly because when you do you realise they aren't pea-brained automatons but individuals. Their life is in your hands and it is devastating to lose one, especially through incompetence.

I have a theory, albeit a slightly romantic one. We are hard wired to live from and in nature. We crave a stewardship role that many indigenous and first-nations people often speak of. Keeping a reef to some extent allows us to get a sense of that stewardship when we tend to live in urban environments and have limited contact with nature. It's natural to feel empathetic for the animals we keep even though we know they would be better off elsewhere. It's not a justification but might explain the compulsion.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Humans live life, keep life and consume life. It is a cycle that is recycled to continue the process. We surround ourselves by life which is the best tribute to living.

 

[CindyKz]

I see a couple of references to keeping captive bred fish as a solution. There seems to be an assumption that captive bred fish don't require space to swim because they never had it to begin with. I think the need for swimming space demonstrated by some species (tangs come to mind but there are others) is more likely to be a combination of biological drive and hunt for food. Neither of those are changed by how the fish is bred. Even in tanks with plentiful food a fish that needs more space will go a little stir crazy, swimming erratically back and forth etc.

 

[EMeyer]

Ethical discussions are tricky because we're not all starting from the same assumptions. But its often good to keep in mind that the person who doesnt share your ethical conclusions may be neither crazy nor a monster.

From my own perspective, all this talk about the "ethics" of keeping fish in a box appears moot, since I kill and eat fish and other animals on a regular basis. Since death is unarguably worse than being put in a box, it would make no sense to consider eating fish ethical and keeping them in a box unethical. Flawed logic.

It is a misapplication of ethical principles to try to apply them to fish. To correct the movie quote: Fish are food, not friends. But since they are also cool to look at, I keep some in a box in my living room. Applying ethical principles to animals makes about as much sense to me as applying them to carrots.

I like my fish a lot, and strive to keep them as healthy as possible. I just don't get confused about whether they're people or fish.

 

[iReefer12]

More of a “Truman Show” scenario than a jail. I think we all do our best to mimic the scenes we see in the ocean and have lights that dim up/down. Etc

Fish Jail is the Betta fish cups that you see stacked at PetCo.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Added a poll.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Applying ethical principles to animals makes about as much sense to me as applying them to carrots.

Carrots are living things too. Who are we to draw the line anywhere and how could we possibly defend it logically.

 

[Paul B]

I don't feel bad and I didn't feel bad for the flounder I had for dinner last night. My fish tend to die of old age but I do feel bad for all the fish we buy that die in a year or two.
In the sea most fish die right after birth, it is just the way of the world.

Here in New York ,thousands or millions of fish die when the tide goes out and they are stranded. I am sure that happens all over the world especially in Northern regions where the tide moves great distances.
The tide here rises 8' during high tide.

 

[EmilyXLC]

I don’t have guilt, so long as they are housed in a sufficiently sized aquarium. They probably miss the freedom, but not having to fear predators & getting fed regularly seems like a decent trade off.

 

[S2G]

I really don't - no explanation though. I'd rather avoid the whole animals rights and tank police discussion

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Ethical discussions are tricky because we're not all starting from the same assumptions. But its often good to keep in mind that the person who doesnt share your ethical conclusions may be neither crazy nor a monster.

From my own perspective, all this talk about the "ethics" of keeping fish in a box appears moot, since I kill and eat fish and other animals on a regular basis. Since death is unarguably worse than being put in a box, it would make no sense to consider eating fish ethical and keeping them in a box unethical. Flawed logic.

It is a misapplication of ethical principles to try to apply them to fish. To correct the movie quote: Fish are food, not friends. But since they are also cool to look at, I keep some in a box in my living room. Applying ethical principles to animals makes about as much sense to me as applying them to carrots.

I like my fish a lot, and strive to keep them as healthy as possible. I just don't get confused about whether they're people or fish.

This pretty well sums up my perspective. I believe we have an ethical responsibility to provide a healthy environment for the animals we keep, but the standard for what that looks like is not a fixed target. Tank sizes and adequate swimming room is probably the least concrete of the variables. I believe I need to insure that my fish are healthy (they appear healthy physically and seem unstressed) beyond that, I'm afraid that venturing to far into fishy psychology is purely an exercise in conjecture. I tend to steer clear of comparing fish to humans emotionally or otherwise because such comparisons are not comparing beings that are even remotely similar IMO. For example, I've seen (though not in this thread) the comparison of putting fish in an aquarium to making a person live in a closet. Simply put, this is just a strawman argument that is meant to invoke emotional guilt by false comparison. Supposing that fish have a similar psychology to people with Maslow's hierarchy of needs doesn't make sense based on any observation of fish behavior (or most any other animal behavior for that matter).

TL;DR version: We have an ethical responsibility to care for our fish well, but I think we should avoid confusing or comparing fish needs with the needs of people. Their needs aren't the same.

 

[bala murugan 00500]

Nowadays I'm buying Captive bread fish ..... so no problem ...

 

[clown and friends]

I don't feel as bad for the fish I keep since I haven't lost one yet in my first year of reefing. I think of them as pets and was devastated when I lost a shrimp earlier this year and I think I would feel worse with a fish loss. I am very meticulous as I know many on this forum are and I think we give fish as good of an environment as possible in our little cubes we keep them in. What makes me feel bad is that for every reefer who really cares is one who doesn't. I was in my LFS just yesterday with a guy who was just starting up a tank came in and had already lost several fish for "some reason" (tank wasn't cycled) and came in to buy more. He said if he lost those he would just buy more since money didn't really matter to him. No concern for the animals who he was killing along the way and the reefs he was taking them from. Just sad and selfish in my opinion. I also worry about our effects on reefs but that is a whole other discussion. However, captive grown corals and captive bred fish are becoming more and more available and it gives me hope!

 

[jsvand5]

Our fish will live longer lives than in the wild, so that is how I feel good about keeping my fish

Not sure on this one. The vast majority of fish collected don’t survive more than a year after collection. I think a lucky few may live longer lives in our aquariums but most don’t survive long after capture.

 

[James77]

I feel bad for them until I look at the fish on my dinner plate. It could be far worse for them.


But I have been leaning towards captive bred for that reason, a tank is all they know. Similar to an indoor cat. They are so happy to be outside, but if all they know is inside they are fine with it. If you keep fish in good conditions and feed them well, I think they are happy as a fish can possibly be.

 

[Punchanello]

I see a couple of references to keeping captive bred fish as a solution. There seems to be an assumption that captive bred fish don't require space to swim because they never had it to begin with. .

No, I think it is a part solution for the sustainability of the hobby not a way to deny the animal's innate needs. Taking fish from the ocean, and the abysmal survival rates that entails, is unsustainable in the long term in the court of public opinion, environmentally and ultimately commercially.

Increased domestication (tank bred species) will over time make these fish more hardy and likely change some of their behaviours over generations. There's a reason, for example, that tank bred clowns tend to be so hardy. They have adapted over generations of breeding.

 

[Fallling]

I struggle with this quite a lot. While I don't consider it a justification or rationalization, I do think about the fact that we do eat fish. However, I think there's ethical and environmental issues that goes along with eating fish as well (including farmed fish) such polluting the ocean with fishing gear and the pressure put on wild fish numbers.

The whole fish trade is really quite disheartening considering the high mortality rates of fish and just plain bad conditions many fish end up in... I went into a very well known and respected LFS (also a sponsor here) several months ago (I hadn't been in years) and there were multiple dead fish and fish showing obvious signs of disease like head twitching. It absolutely broke my heart.

I'm personally striving for 80% captive bred fish for my tank with a few exceptions (a few wrasses). I try to avoid fish from regions that often still employ cyanide to catch fish (even though it's illegal) such as the Philippines, Indonesia & Vietnam.

 

[Richyreefer]

scuba diving nearly ruined the hobby for me. imagining the large schools of fish i was watching trapped in a glass box depressed me. With time, i just bought much bigger tanks!