Are Fish Happy If They Are Not Breeding?

[Fish Fanatic34]

Credits to the YouTube channel "The Dave" (An awesome fish YouTuber) for the idea.

While I was watching his Apistogramma Diaries series, the topic of if a fish needs to reproduce to be happy was brought up.

"Am I denying this fish one of its most basic needs, the need to mate and reproduce"

Personally I think it's dependent on the type of fish, in this case Apistogramma cacatuoides, and similar dwarf cichlids like rams or kribensis I think that's it fairly the consensus that dwarf cichlids are best kept in pairs and therefore can have the mating interactions.

But I think the real question is for more schooling fish and many aquarium fish, bigger cichlids and predatory fish, yes maybe they spend a lot of time alone in the wild and do better by themselves but they would mate at some point.

Anyway just wanna ask for you guys ideas

 

[GaryE]

I think a lot of our fish spawn in our tanks without us noticing or caring. In my teenaged years, I had harlequins spawn daily for months in a well cared for tank, but my water was too hard for the eggs to ever develop. In community tanks, most eggs get eaten, and if fry do hatch, they don't survive tankmates spotting them.
It's remarkable how many fish we think aren't spawning will produce fry in single species tanks with the right water. I have a small group of black neon tetras in a 10 right now. All I had to do was give the eggs some protection after I moved them to a single species tank. I left the parents in there, with their usual water and temperature for a couple of days, then put them back in the main tank. I'm sure they've spawned madly for weeks in my 120 gallon tetra community, as have all their tankmates.
A fair percentage of the cardinal and Pristella tetras they share the big tank with were bred here.

I get killies, barbs and Cichlids showing up in tanks all the time. I've had Corys in the past.

So if you keep gregarious, social fish in groups as you should, they sort out their sexual lives. Most fish breeding is just enabling the survival of the fry in our relatively small aquariums.

Fish you choose to keep solo can be another issue. It's hard to read the happiness or not of other creatures, but we do know the part of our human brain that evolved earliest, the reptilian brain, controls a lot of our emotions. We can take an educated guess that 'feelings' came along early in the story of life. How it works and to what extent is something we may learn in the coming decades.

I don't ever keep single fish, unless I have lost their species group. I have no interest in large fish or predators though (with their social difficulties being why). I like fish behaviour, and solo fish show a very limited range of it. If the fish can't be kept in groups. I won't keep it in isolation. I did that in the past, and I fall on the side of saying it is a questionable thing to do to a fellow creature. That banner tailed male guppy trying to mate with a snail gets old to see very quickly. And in large tanks, Betta splendens can have an interesting social life. But the set up has to be well thought out and managed.

 

[Magnum Man]

most of my tanks are set up as community tanks, but I rarely buy one of anything... but have several singles in my tanks, for what ever reason, most started out as a small group... since the OP started out mentioning apisto's... I have 3-4 females between a couple tanks, that the girls killed off all prospective mates... I have a single Kissing Gourami, that started as a group of 3, killing off it's conspecifics, and seems happy as a single, and I have a couple Angel fish, that were not happy in a group, and are now singles, both of them have a silver dollar companion, they seem happier with, than their previous angel buddies... and as @GaryE ... mentions, many schooling fish that I've witnessed spawning , with no survivors... but watching the dancing is sure interesting...

 

[sharkweek178]

Sometimes people set up male only livebearer tanks. I wonder if that's a bit mean to have a tank full of sexually frustrated males. I'm not joking.

 

[gwand]

In nonhuman primate communities and in herding animals the dominant male does almost all the mating. The subordinates remain sexually frustrated.