Small Tanks Make Me Cross

[evanb]

Hello guys.
I was in a local fish store today (mentioning no names) and they had some really nice fish there!
The only issue was that the majority of the tanks were either totally overstocked or the fish were cramped up.
What do you guys think about it?
I personally think that even a fish in a fish store should have ample space to move around. These fish were expensive so it's not as if they were only going to be in the tank for a day or two. I might also say that there were at least 3 big tanks unused.
I sneaked a pic for proof.
Here u go.

 

[AquaBarb]

Hello guys.
I was in a local fish store today (mentioning no names) and they had some really nice fish there!
The only issue was that the majority of the tanks were either totally overstocked or the fish were cramped up.
What do you guys think about it?
I personally think that even a fish in a fish store should have ample space to move around. These fish were expensive so it's not as if they were only going to be in the tank for a day or two. I might also say that there were at least 3 big tanks unused.
I sneaked a pic for proof.
Here u go. View attachment 126893

So wrong and its horrible to see fish in those conditions. Unfortuntely this happens too much and pet stores like that think of profit over welfare.

Best we can do is steer clear of these places and find more reputable stores.

It is sad to see

 

[AbbeysDad]

I recently watched a horrific video on commercial fish farms that produce fish for human consumption. The chemicals that are used to combat disease and the chemicals in the food pellets used for feed makes many farmed fish products unsafe to eat...yet they slip through any regulations!!!
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I think that there are few, if any, regulations regarding ornamental fish so crowding is the least of the worries. Scroll down in these featured video's to find the videos on 'Millions of Fish at These Farms'.
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It also bothers me to see betas in those 1 cup bowls in the store...but it seems like they all do it. On the up side, I'm told they are fed every day and the water is changed daily as well.
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And then there's the new hobbyist yet to learn of cycling, killing fish without knowing why.
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Fish get no respect.

 

[Retired Viking]

I have to agree, most fish store usually have several overcrowded tanks, to many of them it is only a business. My local Petco is not too bad but the Petsmart always have overcrowded tanks.

 

[evanb]

And yet you walk into a petstore the rats and rabbits ect have plenty of room. Nothing against rats but seriously!..

 

[Wills]

I'm not saying I agree with it but the justification is that they wont be in there for long and if you stocked store tanks like home tanks it would rarely be a viable business. Eg that Vieja in the picture should be in a 6x2x2 as a minimum, equally you can see on the glass it is sold so will be moving on shortly.

The uncomfortable truth is that the industry behind our hobby is so unethical if we dont ignore it none of us would keep fish because it is ultimately inhumane at some point. Huge levels of fatalities from the farms or catch points all the way through the journey of distributors, wholesalers and eventually shops. And its only got worse since I started keeping fish, stores just seem to be full of sick fish all the time, even reputable ones sometimes too unfortunately.

Equally I've been getting more and more troubled about some of our favourite species in the wild like in Brazil where fish are under massive threat from pollution, mining off run and hydroelectric dams - same can be said all around the world. So its almost like whats the greater of two evils, leaving them in the wild or putting them through the aquatics industry to get them into home tanks?

The fish that end up in our tanks (ie dedicated hobbyists) are incredibly lucky and a depressingly small percentage. But I think thats what you have to focus on, the fact that once they are through the commercial side of the hobby they should hopefully be in a great environment and in a position to live a good life with a lifespan that on average would outstrip that of fish in the wild - eg even small tetras in the wild, most wont make it past a few years old due to predation, disease, pollution. And I think thats the plus side of the hobby, especially at the moment.

Anyway rant over, you can probably tell I've been brewing up a lot of this for a bit so good to see that I'm not alone in thinking its a bit iffy.

Wills

 

[Colin_T]

To be fair to the shop, you don't know if they bought that fish in knowing it was that big, or if a customer dropped it off and they put it in the only tank available at the time. If there were bigger tanks available, maybe they weren't cycled or had a disease in them. The shop might have been getting fish in that were meant to go into the bigger tank/s.

 

[AbbeysDad]

I'll toss in another up side. Not all, but many pet shops and breeder operations have fairly sophisticated filtration and automated water change systems. So fish may seem crowded, but often the water quality is higher than the average home aquarium.

 

[itiwhetu]

When I was running my LFS all my tanks were fully planted. They were community tanks as you would have at home but with larger numbers of fish. My experience allowed me to increase the numbers knowing that the fish were moving on. I think all LFS tanks should be planted. Fish like the ones above should a least have a substrate to sit on. My smallest tank was 100 liters and most were 250 liters.