Anyone rescue fish?

[hulkamaniac]

Just curious if anyone here has ever rescued fish or actively rescues fish. We've all seen people who rescue dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils, horses, etc... Why not fish?

The only fish I've ever rescued was a Jack Dempsey that a friend of mine was ready to flush. Her hubby loved the fish, but she hated it and kept trying to kill it so I offered to take it off her hands. It's about 6 inches long and has seemed to do well in my 55 gal tank by itself. I've also been guilty of feeling sorry for a betta or two in their tiny cups at the LFS.

[DepotFish]

Sometimes fish show up at shelters just like any other animal. Petfinder.com has them under reptiles. I don't consider purchasing sick fish from retail to be rescuing.

[justrelax]

I think the hard part of fish rescuing is the space it potentialy requires. You can put a doberman and a mini-poodle in the same space and they'll figure out how to get along. But an oscar and a neon... Not going to work so well.

[coldmachineUK]

I don't normally rescue fish, but I did take on an RTBS who was living in terrible conditions under a previous owner (who never did water changes etc.). He hasn't got the proper space yet (he's in my 10G breeder), but at least his water is clean, he is a lot perkier and he's in the hands of someone who knows how to look after fish!

He'll eventually be moved to a 20G tank all by himself once I've got my other tanks juggled about a bit.

[blazeyreef]

I to have rescued, it over stocked my tanks......but they eventually got good homes,
my freinds dad took down his 20g because it was too much work (rolls eyes') and so I took
2 lamp eye tetra
2 adf's
3 pepper cats (all died on the way home...)
some other odd and end fishies, and they had a pleco and HUGE angel as well, but I refused to take them....I eventually took the living fish to the LFS

[hc8719]

Originally Posted by DepotFish

I don't consider purchasing sick fish from retail to be rescuing.

why not? would you consider getting a sick dog from the pound, a rescue? i would

pet supplies plus (a somewhat national chain) ordered a bunch of ghost knives, clown knives, and brown knives, and stuffed them all in the same tank.

the BGKs were the smallest, and bullied around by the larger knives. the store deeply discounted the BGKs, and i bought the smallest, most beat up one. since then, he has grown several inches, and made a full recovery. the healing rate of these fish is amazing

[Regen311]

My take on rescuing fish from pet stores is that it really isn't doing much good. They are trying to make money, so if you buy a fish, they're going to just buy more to keep stocked. So in that way, more fish are getting "tortured". It's noble, but the pet store isn't going to let that hole you created by purchasing a fish go unfilled. If they have a habit of keeping the tanks overstocked isn't going to stop them from overstocking them in the future.

[plecoperson]

Regen, I think you're right about that. It's like buying a puppy from a pet shop to "save" it; they will use that nice puppy money to go git another puppymill dog. If no one bought the bettas in cups or pups from pet stores, they wouldn't be there.

I have also bought female bettas from the cups at a big chain store, but I knew it wasn't doing any good in the long run, and in fact doing harm. Something I know I shouldn't do, but did anyway-which is even worse than being ignorant of the problem in the first place! Ugh.

All our 13 cats, our rabbit, and our dog are rescues. My reintroduction to fishkeeping was "rescuing" a huge pleco when its owners were moving, and upgrading him to a much larger tank. It is harder to rescue fish-as justrelax said, the odds of finding rescue-able fish that will come together to make a nice friendly tankful are pretty slim. I still feel weird just buying fish....

[hulkamaniac]

As for overstocking the tanks at the pet store, one has to factor in the turnover rate there. The idea is that the fish will only be crowded in those tanks on a very temporary basis. I don't hold it against a store for overstocking a tank. Their filtration system is often superior than what is found in the average home aquarium and the fish in the tank probably won't be there long. Keeping the bettas in the small cups, however, is inexcusable IMHO.

[Regen311]

Hulk and Pleco, I understand both of you completely When I see those bettas in the cups, it just makes me so sad. My cousin asked how long they have been in those cups, and teh guy said some have been in there a couple weeks, it just depends on if people buy them. He said they get new ones in all the time. I feel bad for the "uglier" bettas...