Balloon Fish? Rams Mollies And More!

[tangokitty]

My local fish stores have been selling balloon mallies for a long time now, but recently I've seen balloon Rams and now Balloon red eyed tetras! I think they look ugly and prefer the originals, but does doing this effect them? How do they do that to them?

 

[Colin_T]

They are bred from mutant fish. Basically you get a small percentage of deformities in most batches of fish. These deformed fish normally die because they are unable to compete with their normal brothers and sisters. They don't swim as quickly and many have internal complications thus making them easy pickings for predatory fishes.
In Asia they find the deformed fish and breed from them. This causes the mutation to be passed on to future offspring.
Many of the fish are shorter in the body and as such their internal organs are cramped up and often don't work as well.
By making these new strains of fish the breeders are going against nature and creating unwanted, weak inferior fishes.

 

[ALEXF]

They are bred from mutant fish. Basically you get a small percentage of deformities in most batches of fish. These deformed fish normally die because they are unable to compete with their normal brothers and sisters. They don't swim as quickly and many have internal complications thus making them easy pickings for predatory fishes.
In Asia they find the deformed fish and breed from them. This causes the mutation to be passed on to future offspring.
Many of the fish are shorter in the body and as such their internal organs are cramped up and often don't work as well.
By making these new strains of fish the breeders are going against nature and creating unwanted, weak inferior fishes.

so basically what your saying is dont buy ballooned fish? ok got it

 

[Essjay37 152]

Some of the shops I've been in only stock the balloon rams. They say there's no demand for the normal ones!

 

[ox5477]

It's not neccessarily bad. It's not like the dying of fish that still goes on. That is a death sentence for the fish...

with balloon species as Colin said... It's basically selective breeding. Just as humans have tried to breed certain characteristics into dogs.. cats.. etc.. breeding of these species is pretty common. But with selectively breeding out this "bloated" abnormality.. of course extra risks come too. Like many large breeds of dog who are bred for a certain char trait, there is atleast one health risk (or usually many) that come along with the selective breeding as the gene pool basically becomes copied over the entire "selected" gene pool. This leads to abnormalities and shortened life spans as basically the genetic material all becomes roughly the same due to overbreeding of only a few select specimens.

So... not neccessarily wrong to breed the trait out, (this is a method which gives the variety in alot of animals sold in the pet trade today) it just has to be understood that there is a much greater chance that fish will become easily infected with common aquaria diseases such as ich, and fungus diseases and most likely will not survive, even with fast and effective treatment

 

[tangokitty]

I don't like the way that these fish look, (much like I don't like the way smashed faced dogs and cats look). I much rather have the normal ram and mollies, and red eyed tetras. What other fish have you guys seen that is a balloon?

And off subject, but why can't I post pictures anymore? The browes option to load them is gone.

 

[aquanovice]

I dont anything about mutant fish, dyed fish or pierced fish is attractive I'd much rather have the orginal.
Just don't buy these fish so the shop keeper knows that caring fish keepers dont want to have cruely treated fish in our tanks

 

[ox5477]

The sad fact is that for every person who thinks breeding a species for it's oddities is cruel and wrong, there is another person who is willing to buy it. Thats how there have been so many different species of dogs and cats created, because there will always be a market...

Plus, with humans thinking they are supreme to everyother species on the planet, alot of people feel that it is only right that we should use science to create things that we want, no matter the ethics behind it. And that of course leads to the idea of "Hey, it's only a fish (replace with other animal if you wish). Why do I care if one dies, I can just go back to the store and buy another one." Sad that we think like this, but it all comes from the first sentence of this paragraph

 

[tangokitty]

What do you mean by pierced fish??

I totally understand what you mean about people. I work for a vet and I can't tell you the number of times breeders bring in puppies or moms that they don't care about and only have for the money! It is sickning!

 

[ox5477]

I think what aquanovice means is "piercing" as in the process that most dyed fish are actually dyed. They will be injected with the dye underneath their skin with multiple needles. It is similar to tatooing but it goes much deeper and hence usually kills the fish. The ones that don't get killed right away usually end up dying within a year from the ink seeping to it's vital organs and slowly poisoning the fish...

 

[tangokitty]

I was thinking it meant fish with body piercings!! Seems like those would make it harder to swim!!! But I do hate those fake painted glass fish that children seem to all want. (Sadly I worked at a Petstore that sold them for a short while and children always wanted to buy them) I always tried to tell parents that the coloring would wear out after a month so they wouldn't get them but some still did.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

If balloon mollys and other fish are anything like the short/fat bodied goldfish, then they'll suffer from an increased risk of all sorts of digestive and swimbladder problems due to their abnormally compact/short/fat tummys etc.

 

[tangokitty]

Poor fish. When I worked at the fish store it seems te balloon mollies always died or got stressed easily