On a common myth about stunting.

[Paul_MTS]

I totally agree OhhFeesy, I don't realy care if it's true or not. When explaining to customers what you can't put this big fish in your small tank they keep asking why it's some that most people wont want to do...kill a fish through a slow painful death.

so what happens if the truth of it does come out...people go aorund with oscars in 5 gallon tanks oh and why not, lets chuck a red tailed cat in there for good measure.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Tokis, why would the fish's genes devote resources to only growing the organs without a corresponding devotion of resources to growing the skeleton and the outer skin as well?

The genes make evrything grow in the body, if somthing is not allowed to grow that doesn't stop your genetics making everything that is allowed to grow, to grow. If i put my hand in a metal glove they would keep on growing to as big as what the space in the glove would allow them. My hand bones and veins/muscle/flesh would continue to grow even if the hand itself could not get any larger up until the point where circulation in the hand itself could no longer work adequetely for the hand to stay alive and a living part of my body.
Putting a large growing fish in a tank that is too small for it is a bit like putting it in a metal glove and works in exactly the same way

 

[sinistral]

Your bodys growth like any other living creature is determined by genetics and cell growth, when cell growth grows faster in a partciular area of your body while normal in the parts around it you get a tumor- if a fishs body was stunted this would most likely disrupt cell growth and tumors would most likely be a very uncommon thing to happen in advanced cases of stunting.
Unless the fish has evolved its organs to stop growing when the body shell inner space is running out, there is no way it could say to its genes to stop growing its organs.

Tokis, no offense meant, but where are you getting these statements from? Skin is an organ too. Genes receive stop/go signals for RNA transcription continuously depending on environmental factors as well as changes in the internal milieu.

My disclaimer is that I'm certainly not a marine biologist (though I have taken human genetics etc). I'd be interested to see a citation regarding the comments you made on tumors and stunting as well as a difference in growth rates between organs.

Also, I am not certain that the analogy you drew between a hand in a metal glove and putting a fish in a tank addresses Bignose's question about a difference in growth rates between skin and internal organs.

EDIT: I really hope this doesn't seem like I'm picking on you...I am just really interested in hearing more about your opinions

 

[littlefishie]

I actually received a PM about this matter, and I'm going to do my best to settle it once and for all, if I can. I know it's been bothering me for a bit about the whole organs growing huge thing.

I can ask the trainers at work and see what they know, but they mostly deal with marine mammals with the exception of the freshwater tanks in the aquarium theatre. However, when Dr. June Mergl, the park vetrinarian, comes back from her Florida vacation, I'll ask her about it and see what she knows. She's one of the smartest women I've ever met, and she's taught me more than I could ever imagine about the animals I work with. If anyone would know she would.

Except she doesn't come back for like a week, and by that time no one will be looking at this topic anymore. But I'll try.

 

[vantgE]

Noone has scientific evidence against it and in the fashion of science we must try to disprove the statement, what everyone has offered is a logical analyisis based on inductive reasoning therefore invalid. This is not the way to put a subject of this order to close.


If anyone here feels quailified to examine a fish, they must also have with the proper knowledge as to whether or not organs are abnormal or normal, and comprehensive understanding of other variables for this to be a controlled reliable investigation. Who can justify funding such a project,-- go ahead but I suspect we will never know.

If you are intrested in my opinion I don't think it's true but I don't care it's plain ole unhealthy to keep fish in a small tank whether they survive or their organs burst or not

 

[Bignose]

Tokis is trying to bring up examples of oscars that have grown to maturity in a very small tank. There have been some very dramatic examples of oscars whose noses are all scarred and whose spines are crooked because there simply was not enough room for them even to turn around.

This is not really what I am talking about. Those fish have far worse things wrong with them, but even then those fish are misshapen, but they don't have organs that are too big, at least in any examples of those fish I have seen. The examples I'd like are things like goldfish which we all know can live for 30 years, but after 2 years in a bowl pass on. Are there any cases of those fish that are misshapen simply becuase they were kept in too small of a tank? Not misshapen because they had a disease, but only from being stunted?

littlefishie, just go ahead and post it to this thread, or start another. Either way I eagerly await what a professional has to say about this.

vant, I just want to make is clear that I do not want to give the impression that I support putting large fish in a small tank. I am just against the falsehoods and myths that get spread around as truths. In this case, obviously, what I consider the myth about the large organs due to stunting. There is more than enough truths about the harm stunting itself can cause that there is no need to exaggerate the claims to scare people.

 

[littlefishie]

If anyone here feels quailified to examine a fish, they must also have with the proper knowledge as to whether or not organs are abnormal or normal, and comprehensive understanding of other variables for this to be a controlled reliable investigation. Who can justify funding such a project,-- go ahead but I suspect we will never know.

I don't feel qualified, but I know Dr. Mergl is, and she's had to do autopsies on some of the freshwater fish at Marineland, especially when there was an outbreak of some weird disease in the pond one year. There's been some pretty large fish at work, and several of them I believe could be stunted as well [I'll get pictures to show you what I mean on Friday, but I can't do much about the fish and they have no other home, so please don't ask me to flip out on them for it.. we take the fish in so that they don't get killed. There's some huuuge fish in tanks probably too small for them, but it was that or someone would club them on the head or something.] so Dr. Mergl will have some answers.

Now to be patient.

I hate waiting.

 

[gaya]

Tokis, no offense meant, but where are you getting these statements from? Skin is an organ too. Genes receive stop/go signals for RNA transcription continuously depending on environmental factors as well as changes in the internal milieu.

My disclaimer is that I'm certainly not a marine biologist (though I have taken human genetics etc). I'd be interested to see a citation regarding the comments you made on tumors and stunting as well as a difference in growth rates between organs.

Also, I am not certain that the analogy you drew between a hand in a metal glove and putting a fish in a tank addresses Bignose's question about a difference in growth rates between skin and internal organs.

EDIT: I really hope this doesn't seem like I'm picking on you...I am just really interested in hearing more about your opinions

I'm in boston too! hello

I agree with you as well. I'm not a marine biologist but I’ve taken my fair share of classes in bio, gen, phys, etc and I’ve never heard of such a thing. Granted we are not all interspecies replicas but why wouldn't fish skin be considered an organ? Why wouldn't the skeletal system keep on plugging along?

The glass in the tank would be the metal glove not the skin, eh?
lets pull out the journals.

 

[OohFeeshy]

But OohFeeshy, why should we decieve and bluntly lie to people? It may be a deterrant, but the facts -- the scientific proven facts -- should be enough if the person is going to be deterred at all. Also, some stunting experimentation has been carried out, I cited the sources in my first post.

For it start, you are not blatently lying. We are discussing whether there is conclusive scientific proof, which there isn't either way. Its the kind of thing where mothers tell their kids to eat their crusts because it will make their hair go curly (obviously we assume the child wants curly hair) to get them to eat them, but there is no proof it works. OK, slightly strange analogy but the same sort of statement. As for te experimentation, I think more detailled analysis needs to be carried out. But what I think most of us can agree on, is whether the organs grow or not, fish in too small a tank have a decreased lifespan.