Saving Fish From Bad Conditions?

[kniesh]

I have thought long and hard about this 'saving fish' theory. There is a shop by me that is appauling, they sell mostly reptiles tbh but do have a fish section. The problem was that I know it is mostly selling Goldfish and Neons etc. to yopungsters and their parents who probably dont really know a great deal about fishkeeping. They got some 'different' fish in every now and again and although on most one of the staff seemed quite knowledgable the rest of the staff weren't and the one who was, certainly wasn't an expert.

Anyway I went in to have a look around and I noticed they had 'assorted Cichlids' at about an inch in size. These weren't labelled as anything but this and I knew they were all destined for inproper conditions. At the time my only spare tank was a 30 gal high which is by no means good enough for these, but I knew I would be upgrading to my now 90gal within a few months and I really wanted to save a few but of course we then come to the question of, 'are you actually helping fish by buying them'? The answer is not a simple one at all to me. I know some say if you buy them then the store is simply going to stock more in so you are contributing to the bad conditions. That I understand, however is there also the arguement that we simplty aren't going to be able to stop these shops selling fish to inadequate homes without some sort of laws coming in and let's face it that is a long way off if you ask me. So with this in mind is it really bad to buy these fish, like say an Oscar for a 55gal in another recent post, knowing it is slightly too small, but also knowing you are going to give it the care that it probably has about a 10% chance of getting by you not buying it.

In all I think it is a very difficult question to answer but I tend to think when I see a fish I think is doomed in a shop, I would like to try and save it.

I really would like to hear other peoples opinions and thoughts on this as I think it's a massively important subject.

Vinny

P.S I know this is similar to the other Oscar thread but that seems to be morer about that individuals circumstances and hopefully this is much more general.

 

[Azaezl]

I recently saved a betta from a lps as it was being destroyed by 50 or so neons but it died unfortunately.

It's really hard to decided which is the best thing to do, on one hand yes the shop will see it as a plus that the fish have been sold and will order more in, but if it's something they don't have on a regular basis and only you buy it they may think twice about ordering more.

When I bought my 2 bichirs(9" & 7") they were with another medium size bichir(about 5") and 4 parrot fish that are about 3" in a 2ft tank! I feel really bad as well because they have some baby bichirs in the same tank now(as well as the medium one) with 2 clown knife fish and the parrots. They have another tank with 4 oscars & a common plec(which isn't for sale) in a 3ft. They also have about a dozen ACF in a 2ft wide(but very deep???) tank and about 8 red crabs in a similar setup! I wish I could rescue them all as the tanks just aren't big enough, I know space is limited but still they shouldn't stock something if they don't have a good size tank. What really annoys me is they've just got rid of all the birds they stocked and had loads of space to extend the fish section but no they decided to fill the space up with kennels and carriers!

Anyway enough of that ranting, back to the subject, I think in certain cirumstances it's good to save a fish but most of the time it is just contributing to the problem. It's a no win situation really, if you rescue a fish they think it's a good seller and get more, if you don't you feel guilty knowing that it may end up in a worst situation or die in the bad conditions it's already in. I think you can't just say yes it's good or no it's bad as each situation that arises is different and you have to weigh up the pros and cons at the time.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if you take the time money and effort you would have put into saving that one fish into petitioning the rspca, government, working for animal welfare charities etc it will have much more effect on the bigger picture. if everyone did this instead of buying the fish to save them then there would be a chance of it having an impact.

 

[Squid]

I wrote this in another thread..

One of the things i have always struggled with is where people say that they have rescued a fish by buying them, but not necessarily doing anything else. Simply buying the fish is (no offence to anybody) slightly short sighted. If you buy the fish from the LFS in this manner, then the LFS in their eyes (and revenue wise) has been successful. They then get more fish in and stick them in exactly the same conditions. Surely in those cases, not buying the fish is would be the long term plan to stop these conditions.

If people don't buy them, then they won't be able to keep stocking them forever without a sale. Unfortunately as we all know, this is not that possible as people will keep buying them, as they too might not know any better and follow the LFS advice. So that leaves us with the course of action that you have taken. Let the LFS know that there is a problem so that the might (well we hope) they might take it on board. Then, buy the poor little fishy if you can house the little chap or chappette..

 

[kniesh]

All good points. The main reason i brought this up really was for Squids an Miss Wiggles points. I agree in a sense with what you're saying, however the I think they both count obn us living in a perfect world. Yes we should all be putting our efforts into petitions for bettere laws etc.. This is a given if you ask me and doesn't take much effort at all for what the outcome could be (a better world for pet fish, and other animals). But does this mean we can't buy the fish now and give it a reasonable home rather than a terrible one? I dont think one affects the other directly.

My other point would be, ok so we don't buy the fish because we don't want the shop to make its profit and think that it is good business to stock these fish. But isn't the point of saving this fish because someone else is going to buy it anyway? What I mean is someone else is going to come along and give the shop its profit anyway (if the shop is not telling people of the dangers, which we are presuming), and give it a worse home than we can. So again I'm not sure this is really a deterant in most cases.

I am not trying to be awkward here or disrespect anyones views just have a discussion while playing devils advocate.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah i understand my point is somehow 'ideal world' to an extent i think it's because of my job. I work in Quality Management and write our policies, procedures etc as such I do tend to work in ideals a lot of the time. Over the last few years I've done a lot of charity work and given a lot of time to various causes and one of my massive bug bears is when people winge about things but don't take any action. Everyone has some issue they feel strongly about, I've always said if everyone got off they're bums and gave 1% of they're time and money to helping out that cause the world would be a much better place. Sadly I know this will never happen, however how can I expect it of people if I don't do it myself? So if I see a problem I don't just have a moan, I look into it and see how I can help. But no your quite right it doesn't stop you buying the fish and giving that 1 fish a better home, however where do you then draw the line? If I took in every badly treated animal I saw or heard about our house would be overrun and in all honesty we wouldn't be able to care for them properly and would then be abusing them in our own way. You are also putting your own fish at risk taking them in, I'm sure a lot of you have experienced taking a fish home from the lfs and it carrying a disease which then kills your existing fish, take home a badly treated fish and your definately increasing the risk of bringing a disease into your tank. So what do you do, have hundreds of tanks with 1 fish in each? Loads of quarantine tanks set up, again it comes back to drawing the line somewhere. Yes you may be able to help a couple of individual fish but it's no substitute for a long term strategy to stop this occuring again. It also has the knock on effect of funding the bad shop that is selling them, your next point.

Yes some people will always shop at bad shops so they will always get some custom, however you saving a fish from there will have no effect on what other people will spend in there, so you can choose to add to they're profits or not. To my mind I would not do so. Yes if you don't buy a fish someone will probably come in after you and buy it, but if you do buy it and then someone else comes in and asks for one then the shopkeeper see's double the demand so your just making it look like there is even more demand.

 

[kniesh]

I agree in principle tbh Miss W. I just cant bring myself to leave them there knowing their fate. I also am not talking about buying fish when you simply have no room for them. I have 5 tanks and only usually have 2 set up at any one time, maybe 3. They all have the capability to be set up i.e space as they are sitting empty but I just don't think I have the time to have them up an running at the min. Anyway my point is, I could have these up an running in a matter of no time at all as I have all the filters running on the 2 I have up, and this is where I would home them. I certainly wouldn't reccommend buying a fish you feel sorry for when you cant offer at least a good home.

I agree about the voluntary work aswell. i don't do much at the minute but i am studying wildlife Conservation in Uni so I will hopefully be able to make a difference soon, just struggling for time with work and University at the moment.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

in that situation fine, take the fish home, however i suspect your situation is the exception not the rule, how many fishkeepers don't even have a spare tank for hospital/quarntine let alone multiple spare tanks to be set up ad hoc? It does sadden me that I often see people talking about how they've 'rescued' a fish and it's in no better conditions with them than with the previous owners.

just studying something like that is making a difference though, education is a massive part of the problem and the more you learn the betetr placed you are to help in the future. while you may not feel like you are physically doing anything now you are preparing yourself to make a big enough difference to warrant the few years off so to speak. Also we all have fluctuations in our life, the last 6 months i've not done a lot of charity stuff as we're doing the house up and I simply haven't had the time, but the year before that I raised about £3k for various charities. It all works itself out in the end

 

[Ravenwing]

What I do, is first, request that they take a look at the potentially sick fish. If I am able to take it home, I will but I will inform the place that I'm only doing so because I'm trying to rescue it.

Most chain petstores won't require you to pay for a sick fish. The other way, is to buy a sick fish, if you can house it properly and then send a letter to the corporate chain in question regarding the conditions you found. I'm not sure if anyone goes to Walmart to rescue fish, but apparently a large majority of the Walmart chains are closing the fish dept _or_ hiring a knowledgable staff person to work with the fish.

Another thing you can do, is to buy the sick fish - but refuse to buy any of the products they offer to care for the fish. They make more money of the medications and gimmick like tanks then they do on the fish themselves.

 

[fishboy619]

its a double edge sword decision, what ever you do wont be right or wrong
buying the fish, makes sure it has the best life it can with you, knowing you will give it the best of care, and will be the best home it can have, atleast it wont be kept in crappy conditions
on the other hand, leave it there as only so many fish can be kept by one person, do you really have the room?
whos to say another person will come along and buy the fish, giving it a good life?
if you buy it, your lining the owners with money, whos going out and buying more fish. but if you dont buy it, theres always someone who will. you cant help but feel guilty when leaving a shop, knowing that fish could have been saved, but if you buy it, theres still hundreds left for others to purchase.
no choice is right, no choice is wrong.
do what you thinks right

 

[demonmagus]

I think that if a shop is usually borderline good, and you see something awful - really shocking then a rescue is in order.

if you know a shop is just wrong in so many ways it is best to not got there, and send hate mail, I mean campaign with RSPCA/PFK then that would be much better because if you spend money there, they will just buy some more of 'X' fish because they are selling