an interesting view on "painted" fish

I'm growing tired of these posts that seem intent on instigating a heated debate,

Sorry F.P. but I strongly agree. I remember reading your post about how everybody gets mad at you for speaking your opinion and you were upset or something along those lines. The fact is that there are other forums for general discussion and debate. This is a forum relating to "general" discussion of fish care, elements of fish care, and general freshwater and brackish aquaria. Not morals or LFS reviews. Nobody wants you to go but you have to stay on the intended topics that the forums are in place for.

[Lonewolfblue]

Originally Posted by JohnPaul

Actually, I disagree quite strongly. The problem with that argument is that, it is BECAUSE of the fact that pet stores buy painted glassfish (and, in turn, consumers buy them) that there is a market for them in the first place.

All I can say is it's a personal choice. It's the choice of the LFS to buy and sell them, and it's the choice of the buyer to either buy them or not buy them. If most lfs's chose not to buy and sell them, then the painting would most likely stop, as there won't be enough of a market for it. But the lfs's choose to buy them. Thus, when they say they are against it, really, they don't care. It's $$$ in the pocket. And they won't tell you that they don't care. That's one good thing about the lfs here. They will not put any painted fish in their store. I've even asked them of they had people asking for them, and they told me they wouldn't even order them for someone who asks for them. And like I said, it's choice. I think it's wrong myself, and feel the lfs's should stand up for what they believe rather than just buying them to profit off them. There are so many other fish that they could sell (and really cool fish) and I bet most people would buy more of, especially if they are hard to get. They'll sell like hot cakes. But it's their choice to sell them and our choice to buy or not to buy.

from watching and reading, painted fish are more a matter of economics. what happened to fishy peanut?

[rkilling1]

FishyPeanut = Guest?

[BillyZ]

A user account will display as "Guest" when either the user deletes their account or when an administrator deletes their account upon a flagrant UA violation. I'm not aware of such a violation by FishyPeanut.

[hc8719]

Originally Posted by src

I can't believe how many people have trouble with this simple equation:

If the betas in cups didn't sell, eventually WalMart would stop buying them.

If painted fish didn't sell, eventually the fish stores would stop selling them.

If (product) doesn't sell, eventually the retailer stops stocking (product). Period.

Kill the demand, and you kill the market, and you kill the practice. "Rescuing" fish from retailers just feeds the supply/demand cycle. Yes, it makes you feel good, but in fact all it does is prove to the retailer that they selling enough of the fish to order more of the same. You have rescued that one fish, but you have perpetuated the cycle.

I'm not passing moral judgement on anything, but let's all use some logic and reason, instead of rationalizations and emotions, when we are making these decisions.

unless thousands of people line up outside wal-marts headquarters, demanding they stop selling fish in cups, its not gonna happen. do you think the mother of a 5 year old is gonna join the boycott that nobody knows about.

fact is, male bettas are super aggressive jackasses to each other. how else are they gonna ship them?

another thing is, who is gonna stop fish cruelty, we cant even stop dog cruelty, **** we cant even get half the animals on a "mandatory painkiller" list for freakish scientific experiments.

[hc8719]

did anyone even see this link that was posted in the lounge

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...pus-video.html

*SPOILER*



I mean if an giant aquarium is allowed to put a shark in a tank, just to see it get strangled, and video tape it. and this isnt just some common fish, this is a wild caught, (possibly almost on the endangered list) shark, whos gonna care about some common glass cat that gets "inked"

[src]

Originally Posted by hc8719

unless thousands of people line up outside wal-marts headquarters, demanding they stop selling fish in cups, its not gonna happen. do you think the mother of a 5 year old is gonna join the boycott that nobody knows about.

fact is, male bettas are super aggressive jackasses to each other. how else are they gonna ship them?

another thing is, who is gonna stop fish cruelty, we cant even stop dog cruelty, **** we cant even get half the animals on a "mandatory painkiller" list for freakish scientific experiments.

That's where advocacy and education come into play. Educate your friends, family, neighbors, etc. - anyone who shows any interest at all in fish. Talk to your LFS - rationally and calmly. At the very least, if they won't stop selling them maybe they can make some changes.

Maybe they will tell people that no, you can't really keep the Beta in that cup - it needs a tank of several gallons to be happy. It requires more than just some water from the faucet once a week. The LFS should be HAPPY to do this, since it means more sales of hard goods, ongoing sales of supplies (water treatment, more food because fish live longer, etc.).

If the LFS wont' do it, then you do it whenever you happen to be there - tell people looking at Beta's what the fish REALLY needs. Tell people looking at painted fish how that fish got that way. They may not care, but at least they won't be ignorant about the issues. I do this _all_ the time - a couple of weeks ago I prevented the purchase of 2 Bala sharks for a 20G. A couple of days later, I spoke with a lady buying betas - fortunately, she breeds them and knows how to care for them. I've never had anyone get mad at me, because I am polite and helpful, and the fish store employees don't seem to care either.

But sitting around congratulating one's self for "saving" a fish isn't going to change the system. Giving up because you can't get "thousands of people [to] line up outside wal-marts headquarters" isn't going to change the system.

If you care about an issue, try to change it. And if you don't care enough about an issue to try to change it, why bother getting involved?

[src]

Originally Posted by hc8719

did anyone even see this link that was posted in the lounge

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...pus-video.html

*SPOILER*



I mean if an giant aquarium is allowed to put a shark in a tank, just to see it get strangled, and video tape it. and this isnt just some common fish, this is a wild caught, (possibly almost on the endangered list) shark, whos gonna care about some common glass cat that gets "inked"

I'm sorry, but I think you totally misrepresented the facts in this video. If we can believe the narration, then they _didn't know_ that the octopus was killing the sharks. The sharks were showing up dead for unknown reasons, and the aquarium staff filmed the event to find out why. They found out why. I'm sure that they made changes once they learned the cause of the problem.

Perhaps you were mislead into believing that this was "set up" due to the fact that they kept cutting back and forth between the octopus and the shark as if they knew what was coming (like in horror movies). The fact is, this was probably done with video shot at different times - nice close-ups of the sharks and of the octopus taken in more convenient circumstances, then edited together for effect.

Of course, if the narrator was lying and they knew what was going on ahead of time, then yes it borders on reprehensible, and is certainly irresponsible of them. But then again, fish eat each other all the time in the wild, and putting them into an aquarium doesn't change that tendancy.

[hc8719]

Originally Posted by src

I'm sorry, but I think you totally misrepresented the facts in this video. If we can believe the narration, then they _didn't know_ that the octopus was killing the sharks. The sharks were showing up dead for unknown reasons, and the aquarium staff filmed the event to find out why. They found out why. I'm sure that they made changes once they learned the cause of the problem.

Perhaps you were mislead into believing that this was "set up" due to the fact that they kept cutting back and forth between the octopus and the shark as if they knew what was coming (like in horror movies). The fact is, this was probably done with video shot at different times - nice close-ups of the sharks and of the octopus taken in more convenient circumstances, then edited together for effect.

Of course, if the narrator was lying and they knew what was going on ahead of time, then yes it borders on reprehensible, and is certainly irresponsible of them. But then again, fish eat each other all the time in the wild, and putting them into an aquarium doesn't change that tendancy.

just the same, they knew sharks were dying, so they sent in one more to see "how" they were dying, which is just as bad, as they knew he would probably die. it is also fairly easy to spot an octopus stranglement, as their suction cups leave marks on dead skin, even shark skin. this may happen in the wild, but the octopus may not have felt trapped, as in an aquarium the shark was around him constantly, as opposed to once a day.

i feel they knew they shark would die (duh) and it was a waste of life

heres an analagy: sure lions can get killed my rhinos in the wild, but that doesnt mean that it would be ok to put them together just to see it right? considering lions (like sharks) are endangered to begin with. how many people would be horrified to see this filmed at a zoo?