Fish that should be banned?

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Just a curiosity thread; i was wondering if you think there should be any fish that should be banned from being bred altogether or any that should be banned simply because they come from endangered habitats in the wild and are exported to shops in the UK and else where?
There seems to be a large variety of fish that people are raising concerns about that should apparently be banned either because they are over-pedigreed/inbred or are produced through "immoral" ways or because they are being taken from already endangered habitats etc.

Some of the fish i have been researching so far are the lionhead goldfish that i think should be banned from being bred; they are not natural in any way apart from that fact they resemble a fish but due to their over pedigree and inbreeding, can somtimes not even see due to their large overgrown head structures and are highly prone to swim bladder problems and dropsy. Their entire lives must be a misary to live...Other fish include "butterfly discus" which have no tails and due to this find great difficulty in swimmming and maintaining balance.
How about you guys? please note your reasons for doing so as well.

 

[jimw13uk]

FlowerHorns - why - thats easy - they arent natural fish - they are bred for monetary gain and for no other reason.
Plus they are very hard to keep with anything else as they are very aggressive due to the in-breeding.
I cant see the reasons for doing this when there are thousands of "natural" beauties out there in the fish world that mother nature gave us so lets not mess eh!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yes i agree, it may sound harsh simply stopping the breed existing via banning it from breeding but it wasn't supposed to exist naturaly in nature in the first place and i am sure it faces many problems being so unatural as they tend to very inbred which leads to a whole new array of problems for th efish and others...

 

[jimw13uk]

One of my LFS offered me a FH for nothing just so they could free up a tank as they could put nothing in with it as it was so aggressive - it had even tried attacking fish that it could see through the glass partition.
I obviously turned it down and the following week they had got rid of it - they gave it to someone and lost money on it.
Apart from the aggression side with them I wonder if the fish has other problems we dont know about - is it genetically able to cope with a simple disease like Whitespot for instance - is its immune system ok.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I wouldn't be suprised if it had a very weak imune system because it appears to be quite inbred and a bad immune system is common characteristic of inbred fish; many of the more intensly colored guppys have quite bad imune systems having being inbred with each other so much to produce the bright colors over a short period of time.
I now notice with my guppys in particular it is always the most fancy brightly colored ones that tend to suffer the most when desease strikes the tank...

 

[jimw13uk]

Funny you should say that - I lost a few guppies in one of my smaller tanks a week or so ago and it was the "Flame Tailed" ones that were hit - the yellow and more plain ones were ok
I wonder if thats why

 

[OohFeeshy]

I hate how guppies are so inbred. If I had room I'd breed them myself to add variety in the bloodline.

But to be banned.... I'd say some species of fancy goldies. They can't have a good life- it is hard to swim, hard to breathe, mistreated.....

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I hate how guppies are so inbred. If I had room I'd breed them myself to add variety in the bloodline.

But to be banned.... I'd say some species of fancy goldies. They can't have a good life- it is hard to swim, hard to breathe, mistreated.....

Im trying to breed my more dull looking guppys with my more fancy brightly colored ones to produce ones that still have beautiful color but a better imune sytem and genetics; i am also doing the same thing with my platys as not only is it anoying when whitespot wipes out all your colorful fish but also i think it must be hard on the fish so it is why i am trying to improve their genes.

On the case with the lionheads/flowerheads i think they are beyond repair...

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Uh, no offense, but if we're going to be banning fish, shouldn't we also move on to other animals? Such as, oh I don't know, DOGS? Cats? Lets get rid of pugs, and bulldogs, and those persians, since they all have such nasty breathing problems and such. In fact, good riddance to all purebred dogs and cats!! They all get these nasty breed related diseases and illnesses and such, lets just stop all breeding....



Yeah, this would work as well as a boat made of swiss cheese. People, there is always going to be someone who likes a fish/whatever that looks a certain manmade way, and there isn't going to be any banning of anything. If there was, my ban on all stupid people would have been enforced years ago....




P.S. Before anyone gets offended (as some are wont to do) I was making a joke with that last comment and it wasn't meant for any of you, and two, you'll know that I happen to LOVE bulldogs and pugs, so ha!
Edit: and kitties, some persians are cool, but some really are just nasty... same with pugs, I hate bulgy eyes!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

This is not a serious debate in the sense i hoping to acheive such things, i only want to discuss the topic and see what you thought. I know there are many other inbred/over-pedigreed animals such as dogs and cats but it is still the same issue as with the fish.
In fact, as much as you say that it is impossible to ban such things i have heard talk of new laws been made to stop overbreeding such animals as sausage dogs that are already so over bred they face a number of health problems; there is also talk of perhaps banning various breeds full stop.
The question here is not wether the animal looks nice or not, it is the morality in the situation and the problems that these creatures face via the over-pedigreeing and inbreeding etc and wether people should stop breeding them full stop because of these issues etc.

 

[jimw13uk]

What I cant understand is why people want to do it - wether its fish or dogs - why mess with mother nature. Sure in-breeding happens in the natural world and it always will but the "engineering" of animals for our pleasure is surely immoral.
Now before anyone things i'm some sort of vegan hippy tree hugging nuttter i'm not - i'm far from it just a normal bloke who is far from perfect but has a real passion for animals (BUAV member since I was 11 - YOC/RSPB member since I was 7). What i'm trying to say is that what right do we have to do some of the things we do. If you look around we(human race) pretty much screw most things up.
I am totally against all this inbreeding/over-pedigreeing in the pursuit of owners vanity. They certainly arent doing it for the good of the animal.

But as nothing will ever change lets hope all these animals(hybrids or natural) live their lives happily and well cared for.

 

[Ben]

why should flowehorns be banned because they are aggresive?i dont get that, then that means most of the big cichlids out there(Midas,Beani,Jag,Green Terror)should be banned because they are aggresive?no they shouldnt.
i aggree its wrong to hybridize but whats done is done, if i hybridize one of my fish i euthanize the fry or desturb the eggs.you can kill a fish because someone else made it that way,and where else are you going to put the hybrids?they wernt orginated from a river so if youdo that they will kill off the eco system.
so no, hybrids shouldnt be banned, just euthanized at birth, but if they grow up i dont think theres much you can do about it.

 

[jimw13uk]

why should flowehorns be banned because they are aggresive?i dont get that, then that means most of the big cichlids out there(Midas,Beani,Jag,Green Terror)should be banned because they are aggresive?no they shouldnt.

Sorry - you misunderstood me - I didnt say they should be banned because of their aggression - I was merely pointing out one of the problems with them which is commonly known - they are overly aggressive.

I agree that there is nothing that can be done now about any of it. They will be around now as a "cichlid" and stand as a cichlid alongside Midas,Beani,Jag,Green Terror.

I dont like them and would never own one but each person can make their own choice on owning one.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Im not saying all hybreds/pedigree fish should be banned, just the ones that actualy suffer because of their breeding. With lionheads for example as i mentioned above there breeding makes it so that they have difficulty even seeing because of their head formations and suffer alot from dropsy and swim bladder disorders due to their physique etc.

 

[LifeBear]

As far as guppies go, if you want to breed genetically diverse but still colorful fish, why not buy from widely different sources? It wouldn't do as well as adding the paler ones but it would end up with prettier fry.

As for weirdly shaped fish, I agree that too far is too far. I don't think a ban is going to happen.

Selective breeding is not a bad thing, but it can be carried too far.

I would certainly rather have gippies with innate colorful tails than a pale fish that someone injected dye into.

Rather than ban the breeding of certain fish for the way it is constructed, I think there are fish that just plain should not be sold in pet shops. Clown knives, red tail cats, anything likely to grow big enough to need a pond. I think lps should be more careful about what sorts of set-ups people have before selling them things like oscars, bala sharks, and even goldfish.

(The lionheads I have seen looked pretty. It's too bad it isn't natural.
Now, bubble eyes give me the creeps. Eww!)