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Controversial Fish Care. Ethics of fish keeping and tank sizes.


Cameron6796

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EDIT: this thread was initially about keeping 2 tangs in a tiny 30-38 gallon tank that I saw on YouTube and was sickened by but it is now a much more useful thread discussing the ethics of keeping fish at all.

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Mhm

 

He's cocky and thinks he can justify it by bringing public aquariums into it with whales yet only two have whales

 

But seriously if you have youtube yell at him or something he deserves to be told repeatedly...

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Think I've put you to work on this guy before ^

 

He gonna be hella mad with all of the attention... Let's get him on cnn " man brutally harassed over some fish in too small of tank" headline reads

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I found the pile of rocks offensive.

 

When you called him a dickhead, did he hear you?

 

Think I've put you to work on this guy before ^He gonna be hella mad with all of the attention... Let's get him on cnn " man brutally harassed over some fish in too small of tank" headline reads
Call Nancy Grace, tell her he kidnapped an attractive blond Caucasian woman in her early 20s late teens.Youll get tons of attention tgat way
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What's all the fuss about? I get the point but it blows my mind that we are still even having this topic arise. I know liveaquaria says that a tang has to be kept in a tank that is "x" amount of gallons, but those "rules" are completely false and have literally been proven as such thousands of times.

 

I've personally kept tangs in tanks much smaller than what is recommended successfully, for many years. I'm also keeping tangs in very large systems currently and their behavior is absolutely no different than the fish that were kept in the smaller tanks.

 

IMHO, the only fish that are of real concern in the video are the damsels. Those guys, particularly the domino, will likely kill off everything long before the tangs outgrow the tank. The two tangs appear perfectly content in that tank and will likely stay that way for quite a while.

 

Liveaquaria's recommendations in many instances are about as accurate as the whole "watts per gallon" theory. Which for the record, would mean that the high powered LED's that are commonly used in the hobby are not strong enough to sustain photosynthetic corals. We all know how true that is...

 

This is just my honest opinion (which is based on extensive first hand EXPERIENCE). I'm not saying any and everyone with a 30g tank should run out and buy tangs but the experienced hobbyist can definitely pull it off. I really don't have a problem with the tank in question. All of the livestock look perfectly normal and healthy to me :)

 

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Lol yea I was wondering if anyone was gonna mention the damsels. If anything those little things had murder written all over them while the tangs swam about in complete placid oblivion.

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Yeah I can understand pushing the boundaries like people putting clowns in their fluval spec v but still a fish that is commonly swimming 300f one way along a reef grazing in a tank that's 1.5 feet just disappoints me. I under stand all the people who are with and against my side of the argument but it's still baffling after all the tang policing people still do it, or lfs still sell them.

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i have no problem at all when people put juvenile tangs in smaller setups with the intent on moving them into the bigger display once they are ready. this is hardly ever the case though. I have people brag all the time about, " i had a yeller tang in a 29 gallon for 3 years no problem!" I usually ask, "then what happened?" " well he got sick one day and died because he was old" people don't realize the damn things can live three decades or more when they have the right environment.

 

I always relate it to dogs. If you had in your possession an extra small kennel, lived in an apartment, and only had a small designated pooping area, would you even waste your time shopping for a doberman or great dane? if you answered "yes" then you are an asshole and probably have tangs in a nano.

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Yeah its kinda dumb he says his friend is a marine biologist, yet he justifies tangs in this. He had them in a nuvo 16 which honestly would have been better since it is a two foot length. Also something that baffled me was he claims "liveaquaria says that they require a certain tank size so that they make more money on big fish" well that makes no sense considering if a fish company says it needs a big tank most people with nanos won't get one therefore they would lose money. This guys fish store would go something like this. Panther grouper, minimum tank size: 50gallons. Blue hippo tang minimum tank size: a freaking cookie jar

 

Hahaha! I laughed out loud at that one
yeah that was funny I had not even thought of that
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Yeah I can understand pushing the boundaries like people putting clowns in their fluval spec v but still a fish that is commonly swimming 300f one way along a reef grazing in a tank that's 1.5 feet just disappoints me. I under stand all the people who are with and against my side of the argument but it's still baffling after all the tang policing people still do it, or lfs still sell them.

 

 

Then does it really make a difference if the tank is 1.5' or 6'?

 

I've personally kept tangs for many years in a 40 breeder. I did lose them eventually but it had nothing to do with the size of the fish or the tank they were in. They were lost in an extended power outage that occurred when I wasn't home. I also lost a couple of small wrasses and a flame hawkfish. None of those are "too small" for the tank they were in yet they met the same fate. I GUARANTEE that I would still have the tangs today if it weren't for the power outage.

 

I'm now keeping tangs in both of my big tanks (one is 7' long, the other is 9' long). The tangs in those tanks have the exact same demeanor as the others I've kept in a 3' tank, absolutely no difference at all. In all honesty, when compared to how tangs act in the wild none of us (even liveaquaria) are keeping them properly.

 

I'm not really interested in going into further debate. What really caught my attention here is the fact that we're (collectively) still even talking about this topic. We've evolved so much in the hobby yet we can't get over this hump? When I first started in the hobby salt water aquariums had to be no less than 55g's or they were destined to fail. Anything smaller was impossible, according to the experts :). We're all, this whole site is, "doing it wrong", lol.

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Then does it really make a difference if the tank is 1.5' or 6'?

 

I've personally kept tangs for many years in a 40 breeder. I did lose them eventually but it had nothing to do with the size of the fish or the tank they were in. They were lost in an extended power outage that occurred when I wasn't home. I also lost a couple of small wrasses and a flame hawkfish. None of those are "too small" for the tank they were in yet they met the same fate. I GUARANTEE that I would still have the tangs today if it weren't for the power outage.

 

I'm now keeping tangs in both of my big tanks (one is 7' long, the other is 9' long). The tangs in those tanks have the exact same demeanor as the others I've kept in a 3' tank, absolutely no difference at all. In all honesty, when compared to how tangs act in the wild none of us (even liveaquaria) are keeping them properly.

 

I'm not really interested in going into further debate. What really caught my attention here is the fact that we're (collectively) still even talking about this topic. We've evolved so much in the hobby yet we can't get over this hump? When I first started in the hobby salt water aquariums had to be no less than 55g's or they were destined to fail. Anything smaller was impossible, according to the experts :). We're all, this whole site is, "doing it wrong", lol.

You can slice it however you want it's still effed up to keep such an athletic fish in a small tank. I guess when you work around 1200 and 3000 gallon 13 ft long aquariums all the time, you get to see their "real" behavior. It's not a "hump" like you said. It's ethics that for some reason, we apply to every other pet/animal but not fish.

 

My family has some horses. Horses are considerably large mammals that are extremely athletic and run across thousands of acres in the wild. My backyard at home is about 100 ft long and 80 ft wide. If I were to put a horse back there he would eat, try to gallop as best he could, sleep, and walk around. He would do ALL the things a horse should do. I guarantee you he would not die. Would that be ok?

 

I don't expect you to know a lot about horses, (maybe you do though) but I can tell you the answer is an obvious NO.

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Can someone also yell at him for taking a vertical video.

Neanderthal.

What a philistine.

 

 

I think the thing is actually more about ethics than life/death. You could live in a closet, if need be, but it wouldn't be pleasant. Tangs CAN live in these tanks, clearly. As long as they have their required food and water quality, they'll live. That doesn't mean they don't prefer to have more room to swim. Given the fact that recent studies (I'll edit with the link at some point) have suggested that fish can and do actually feel pain, I think we need to reconsider what we keep in what kind of tanks.

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