Unpopular Opinions (fish related)

[GaryE]

My unpopular opinion here is that fancy Betta fins look like dead, decaying plants. That gets them chomped on, and if smaller fish discover they're a tasty source of protein, Bettas can end up pretty miserable with bad haircuts. The small fish aren't being aggressive - they are being fooled and making discoveries from it.
Aggressive wee turds would be polar blues, which might kill the betta and tetras just for something to do. They may be petrie dish specials, but they are built with fish that have a desperate to need to carve out space to breed in a very tough natural environment, and they still do damage in spite of their deformities.

12 green neons must look very good. That's a popular fish related opinion.

 

[NoHugTheFish]

My unpopular opinion here is that fancy Betta fins look like dead, decaying plants. That gets them chomped on, and if smaller fish discover they're a tasty source of protein, Bettas can end up pretty miserable with bad haircuts. The small fish aren't being aggressive - they are being fooled and making discoveries from it.
Aggressive wee turds would be polar blues, which might kill the betta and tetras just for something to do. They may be petrie dish specials, but they are built with fish that have a desperate to need to carve out space to breed in a very tough natural environment, and they still do damage in spite of their deformities.

12 green neons must look very good. That's a popular fish related opinion.

Oops! Too late! Already put 3 of them in the 5 gallon with the turds & co, I mean didn't want to put them in the 20 gallon with all the oscars that would just be silly.

 

[jaylach]

Oops! Too late! Already put 3 of them in the 5 gallon with the turds & co, I mean didn't want to put them in the 20 gallon with all the oscars that would just be silly.

Actually you can keep fish that would damage/kill each other in the same tank. I helped a friend do this in the 1980s that had a leopard shark in a 400 gallon tank. He even tried adding a grouper and the shark killed it. Took a piece of plexiglass and used silicone to mount making two isolated areas of the tank. Broke the tank, if I remember correctly, into approximately 250 and 150 gallon sections. The shark probably had a few 'nose bruises' from running into the plexiglass divider but it learned and ended up pretty much ignoring the other area. A leopard shark was one of few sharks, if not the only, that you can keep in a large household aquarium as they will restrict their growth to about 6 inches per 50 gallons of water volume. Since we drilled holes in the inserted plexiglass for water flow we were a bit concerned that the shark would still get to large for its area but that did not happen so mayhaps it is really that this shark will do 6 inches per 50 gallons of 'living space' rather than the total water volume of the tank.

Sigh, sorry, I sort of tend to ramble on at times. A 5 gallon is likely to be too small for doing such a divider but it may be worth researching as to how much room the three bad boys need to see if such a divider could possibly be feasible.

 

[NoHugTheFish]

Aww... I went scuba diving one time and the groupers were hanging out under the boat like stray puppies. Sigh, I guess the shark needed turf ...and surf.
And no, it was interesting, you didn't ramble at all.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Actually you can keep fish that would damage/kill each other in the same tank. I helped a friend do this in the 1980s that had a leopard shark in a 400 gallon tank. He even tried adding a grouper and the shark killed it. Took a piece of plexiglass and used silicone to mount making two isolated areas of the tank. Broke the tank, if I remember correctly, into approximately 250 and 150 gallon sections. The shark probably had a few 'nose bruises' from running into the plexiglass divider but it learned and ended up pretty much ignoring the other area. A leopard shark was one of few sharks, if not the only, that you can keep in a large household aquarium as they will restrict their growth to about 6 inches per 50 gallons of water volume. Since we drilled holes in the inserted plexiglass for water flow we were a bit concerned that the shark would still get to large for its area but that did not happen so mayhaps it is really that this shark will do 6 inches per 50 gallons of 'living space' rather than the total water volume of the tank.

Sigh, sorry, I sort of tend to ramble on at times. A 5 gallon is likely to be too small for doing such a divider but it may be worth researching as to how much room the three bad boys need to see if such a divider could possibly be feasible.

some fish just need to stay in the wild, it’s unfair to them. i saw a 1 foot wrasse at my LFS a few days ago, it was cooped up in a 300g (i think) tank. while that sounds like a lot, in reality these fish are most likely wild caught and used to having a ton of swim space.

 

[GaryE]

No fish should be kept in a tank where the front glass is not at least eight to ten times the full adult size for the species.

Now that is an unpopular opinion, but a tried and true observation.

 

[Myrkk]

I absolutely agree GaryE. They have such amazing lives in the wild and as we don’t really need to keep them in captivity, but do so for our own pleasure, the least we can do is give them the best life possible. In my opinion that means as much space as possible, hence my chilli rasboras in a 200litre tank.