Lets Discuss Ethics in the Hobby

[Stang67]

I do not think you were either. The point of this thread is try and see what others consider ethical and not ethical. Not to argue about others or just say "ethics" are different for everyone. I know they are, but would love to see everyone line out what is and what is not ethical to them.

Mis read the assignment....
What is ethical : whatever the heck I want to do with what I have it's my stuff and I really don't care what other people think.
What is not ethical : me trying to to tell people they are wrong for doing what they want with their stuff.
Low nutrients aren't ethical because your starving things. High nutrients aren't ethical because your poisoning things.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

My 2c.
Ethical is defined loosely as : pertaining to or dealing with morals or right and wrong in conduct.
Moral by definition also has to deal with right and wrong.
If someone is trying to put either of those things (right and/or wrong) in a pretty box with a bow on it good luck. Morality and ethics are both a basic form of perception. And perception is based mostly on personal experiences, thoughts and beliefs that we project onto others.
I for one would prefer not to be forced into a box and don't try to force others into my box.
My thing is it takes all kinds to make the world go round and if your panties are getting in a wad about how I dispose, keep, take care of or deal with anything in my tank you really need to take a look at your life and go get a new one. I'm not on here for your approval.

You said panties.

But the point was not for one to criticize another, but to see what others thought was or was not ethical.

I do agree with you and could care less what one thinks about what I do. Just curious as to what others views are.

I now see this was a bad idea, like most things I do and say lol. Guess it just sucks to be me, or does it lol.

 

[jasoniames]

I enjoy my aquarium as much as anyone else in this forum, but I make no illusions about what we're doing here, we are practicing in something that is, at it's very core, unethical, doesn't mean we're bad people, good people do bad things everyday. With that being said, I kind of get the gist of the original post and what you were attempting to find out. It's a question that can not be answered because it's going to be different for everyone. I will say I have killed many atasia anemone over the years but I've also driven through the night to re house fish when my tank was broken by pieces of a falling ceiling when we had a bad storm about 2 years ago. I could care less about the anemones but couldn't stomach thinking that these fish died because I didn't want to make a three and a half hour round trip. Am I ethical because of that no cuz I'm also the guy who went to the pet store in the first place and bought them just means my line was knowing I didn't want to be the reason these fish died.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I enjoy my aquarium as much as anyone else in this forum, but I make no illusions about what we're doing here, we are practicing in something that is, at it's very core, unethical, doesn't mean we're bad people, good people do bad things everyday. With that being said, I kind of get the gist of the original post and what you were attempting to find out. It's a question that can not be answered because it's going to be different for everyone. I will say I have killed many atasia anemone over the years but I've also driven through the night to re house fish when my tank was broken by pieces of a falling ceiling when we had a bad storm about 2 years ago. I could care less about the anemones but couldn't stomach thinking that these fish died because I didn't want to make a three and a half hour round trip. Am I ethical because of that no cuz I'm also the guy who went to the pet store in the first place and bought them just means my line was knowing I didn't want to be the reason these fish died.

This is mostly what I was looking for and maybe should have worded thing different. I just wanted to see the differences of what other thought. Guess fish in a box is like politics and should just be kept to themselves.

Either way, @Stang67 said panties in a wad, so I got laugh out of it.

Back in to regularly scheduled ich and what to do programming.

 

[Stang67]

This is mostly what I was looking for and maybe should have worded thing different. I just wanted to see the differences of what other thought. Guess fish in a box is like politics and should just be kept to themselves.

Either way, @Stang67 said panties in a wad, so I got laugh out of it.

Back in to regularly scheduled ich and what to do programming.

I edited that some people may not have thought that was nice and I apologize.

 

[jabberwock]

My 2c.
Ethical is defined loosely as : pertaining to or dealing with morals or right and wrong in conduct.
Moral by definition also has to deal with right and wrong.
If someone is trying to put either of those things (right and/or wrong) in a pretty box with a bow on it good luck. Morality and ethics are both a basic form of perception. And perception is based mostly on personal experiences, thoughts and beliefs that we project onto others.
I for one would prefer not to be forced into a box and don't try to force others into my box.
My thing is it takes all kinds to make the world go round and if your panties are getting in a wad about how I dispose, keep, take care of or deal with anything in my tank you really need to take a look at your life and go get a new one. I'm not on here for your approval.

If one uses the colloquialism "panties in a wad" in an internet post, it is reasonable to assume that they are old and wise. Tip of the hat Sir...

 

[Eagle_Steve]

If one uses the colloquialism "panties in a wad" in an internet post, it is reasonable to assume that they are old and wise. Tip of the hat Sir...

Not a sir. That makes it even funnier lol.

 

[jabberwock]

Not a sir. That makes it even funnier lol.

Ma'am then...

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I edited that some people may not have thought that was nice and I apologize.

Nice is like ethics. Only up to the mods at this point.

 

[62518161]

No troll. Seriously curious what others think is ethical and not. Simple as that.

Keep telling yourself that.

 

[WVNed]

LOL
I live in a time where things once good are bad with the opposite being true as well.

It was stated above as a given that good people do bad things everyday and it wasn't challenged. This hasent been my experience in life. I have only seen people claiming to be good doing bad things. Then they make excuses as to why special considerations apply. I watch such people at all times. Special conditions will usually also apply if they are alone with my things and want some of them.

If there is no commonly agreed to concept of morality a discussion of ethics is pointless.

I would never intentionally step on a live thing. Even a spider. My wife hates it when I catch them and put them outside. Ants and roaches are exceptions. Ants once tried to eat me. They declaimed war first. Roaches are roaches.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I edited that some people may not have thought that was nice and I apologize.

 

[Tamberav]

I feel it is my ethical duty to kill a mosquito whenever I get the chance! Seriously, screw those guys!

 

[sp1187]

I got recipes.

 

[Mackey]

If there is no commonly agreed to concept of morality a discussion of ethics is pointless.

This ends the discussion. We all come from various religions, creeds and worldviews with incredibly diverse moral codes. To have a discussion of ethics without any common ground is lunacy. It's a discussion of feelings not ethics.
Unfortunately reef2reef is not the website to talk about these sorts of metaphysical questions. Leave the moral discussions to the philosophers and leave the "Help! my fish is covered in white freckles!!!" to us.

 

[killer2001]

Ethical to me: Removing / killing something that if left unchecked will have a negative impact on reef tank inhabitants.

What comes to mind right now is the Lionfish infestation off of the Florida coasts.

 

[HankstankXXL750 Verified Sponsor]

I get that, so maybe they should chime in and let us know their ethics instead of just a broad statement in the TOS.

I will line some out for myself.

Killing crabs as they are considered "bad" - Not ethical to me.
Killing aips as they are considered "bad" - Not ethical to me.
Using fish or other critters to control the above - Ethical to me.
Taking an out of the blue mean fish and euthanizing it - Ethical to me
Fragging Corals - Ethical to me
Cutting anemones to make more - Not ethical to me
Recycling corals to feed my general stars and then put them into my CaRX to be reused by the tank - ethical to me
Throwing corals in the trash - Toss up, as I can easily see both sides.
Killing flatworms with chemicals - not ethical to me.

While arguments could be made for and against the above, these are my views and only my views.

Not a bad take, but if it is ok to add animals to eliminate the pests, why would manually doing it be any less ethical.
I bring this only as I have used peppermint shrimp, and copperbanded butterfly for aipstasia control. Also aipstasia-X.
The copperbanded did an outstanding job, yet after the aipstasia were gone he too passed. I was more afraid that he would start in on my corals, so I was going to move him from one reef to the next and end up in one of my fowlers, but he died.
Would love to get another as I still have aipstasia in my other reef, but I feel that it would be wrong (unethical) as even with my experience I’m just not sure I can sustain the fish so my eliminating the larger aipstasia and letting the shrimp manage the smaller ones seems to make sense to me.

I find people throwing away corals away because the grow too much really sad, but if there is no market for them as frags, or no way to get them to a store that needs or wants them, it seems no different than trimming trees or the grass for the overall health of the coral or system.

So I don’t think anything in your list would be considered ethical or unethical.

Now I don’t know for sure but I assume (butt/u/me) that what the Forum Moderators are referencing is gross negligence or intent.
Dumb examples -

Telling someone to add a cup of bleach to their tank to kill algae DON’T DO THIS IT WILL KILL EVERYTHING *disclaimer. This would be unethical.

Starting a thread with the intention of “starting an argument”. Then degrading people who react.

Intentionally lying to someone to create a negative outcome. Would be hard to prove, but say a very experienced reefer (determined by the knowledge in their other posts/threads) then starts telling new reefers, “Sure you can add 15 fish to your 40 gallon breeder as soon as you set it up. Just change 10% of the water and double dose Prime every 12 hours.” Again this would just be wrong as an experienced reefer would know that the fish are going to die.

IMHO the ethical consideration in the TOS have more to do with our communities interaction with each other vs our particular reefing habits. I would also assume that posting about raising fish to kill so you can get new ones, or “bragging” about not maintaining a tank to the point of “harming its inhabitants” would fall in here also.

So follow the golden rule. Do unto others as your would have them do to you.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I just opened the door on this conversation but it would be unethical for me to comment.

 

[wwarby]

There's an important difference between unethical and irresponsible behaviour.

Irresponsibility is when you are blind to or unaware of the consequences of your actions or inactions. You haven't researched appropriate tank size/parameters/mates, you turn the heater off and forget to turn it back on, or in my case you put a mantis shrimp through new tank syndrome because an LFS told you not to trust what you read on forums and a bottle of bacteria will make tank cycling unnecessary. Responsible husbandry in this hobby is something that has to be acquired over time through research and experience; you don't know what you don't know, and as a new reefer it's very hard to sort the good information from the bad. I feel bad when I see well intentioned people being ripped apart on these forums for irresponsible behaviour that led to unintended consequences, and as a community I think our focus should be on encouragement and education rather than admonishment in those cases.

Unethical behaviour is when you deliberately engage in a behaviour you know will lead to (or has a high probability of leading to) consequences that the community as a whole deem to be unacceptable (ethics being the community consensus view of right and wrong). You buy a fish you know is likely to be bullied by your tank mates, you kill an inhabitant without making reasonable efforts to find an alternative solution, in other words you mistreat your inhabitants out of malice or indifference to the consequences you can foresee.

There's also the question of which community's ethical standards you want to uphold, because the line will be drawn very differently for fellow hobbyists, animal rights activists and the population at large. Our hobby is predicated on yanking healthy specimens out of the sea, shipping them across the world in a dark box on a plane spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and moving them from tank to tank until hopefully they land in one owned by a responsible hobbyist. We can't know whether the specimen has been collected responsibly from a sustainable population. I don't know what percentage of specimens make it through that process unscathed but even if it was 100% I can't imagine anyone in the animal rights community thinking it was acceptable just so we could have a pretty box of fish in our living rooms.

If you grant that reef-keeping is acceptable in the first place (which I do, and I think that requires a bit of an arbitrary mental leap to be honest), the ethical lines become more nuanced. The ethical line gets drawn by the reefing community can and should move with the times. Many reefers consider keeping copperband butterfly fish and moorish idols unethical because such a high percentage of them die, but that is the only way for the hobby to progress - by trial and error. As I understand it many species now common species (corals especially) were thought to be impossible to keep as recently as 20 years ago.

The reefing community does seem to have a few solid and sensible ethical principles which I try to abide by:

1. Do your research (in other words, it is unethical to be irresponsible - you should know the risks you are taking).
2. Don't kill anything intentionally if there is a less violent (and importantly, practical) solution available.
3. Don't overstock your tank or stock it with species known to be unsuitable for your tank size/temperature/scape/parameters/mates.
4. Don't rush. Stick to species appropriate to your level of experience, to minimise the risk they are exposed to.

A final thought is to keep things in perspective. Climate change induced coral bleaching is probably responsible for a thousand or a million times more reef fish deaths than aquarists, and most of us don't think twice about melting the skin of garden snails with pellets because they are eating our tulips. The fact that these discussions even come up within the community is a very encouraging sign I think - most of us do feel a strong obligation to engage in this hobby with a sense of reverence and respect to the animals we keep and I think that's a really positive thing.

 

[Opus]

See the animal in his cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?