Shaping Guppy Fins

[itafx]

I have these delta guppies. I raised them from fry. they are very healthy, but the ends of their fins look ragged even though they aren't bitten or damaged. Has anyone ever tried trimming the ends to re-shape them into neat deltas like you see in the online stores?

 

[theotheragentm]

I would not do that. There may be nipping going on when you aren't looking. I would leave the fish as it is and enjoy it for its beauty as it is.

 

[rich311k]

Do not cut the fins. How many guppies in what size tank? Any other occupants?

 

[NoSvOrAx]

wow

 

[itafx]

They aren't nipping. A pure guppy tank (29 gallon). I did to it yesterday. The fish is absolutely fine. It was like cutting the frizzy split ends on my daughter's hair. I will see if it grows back ragged or not. I posted before and after pics. The colors didn't upload right, but you can still see the results of the experiment.

 

[theotheragentm]

That sounds horrific. Although you can't see the fish in pain, it's no different from a fish getting its tail nipped by a fish. I would encourage you not to do this again. Since you've already done this, I would treat with antibacterial medication to help the healing process as you have created a wound on the fish.

 

[itafx]

I think it's more like clipping your fingernails. If one cut too close, it would hurt, but you can see clearly from the pic that this is not the case.

 

[QTOFFER]

I think it's more like clipping your fingernails. If one cut too close, it would hurt, but you can see clearly from the pic that this is not the case.

Not exactly.
The edges of our fingernails and our hair are made of nonliving keratin.

Fish fins are living tissue through and through - complete with tiny blood vessels, and nerves. It's very difficult to measure to what extent fish feel pain, but it's almost certain that fish do sense when their fins are being cut, trimmed, nipped, whatever.

 

[itafx]

When you touch a fish's body, it reacts. When I trimmed the fin, there was no reaction whatsoever. And even it it would have reacted, sometimes beneficial things come at a cost of some degree of pain.

 

[theotheragentm]

Beneficial for you to look at or the fish?

How did you manage to get the fish to a point where you could trim the tail? Surely just that process can't be good for the fish.

 

[Smaug21]

While I'm certainly not an expert on the subject, my vertebrate anatomy background makes me feel that he's correct with the fingernail analogy, especially with "fancy" guppies with large non-muscular tail fins. I'm drawing this conclusion from my knowledge of fish evolution and terminology not from any actual experience.

Almost every fish that is alive today belongs in the Actinoptergii Genus?, group? can't remeber the bigger name, as apposed to Condrictyis (cartilage fish, sharks etc.) or Sarcoptergii (lobe-fined fish, like Coelacanth). The term Actinoptergii comes from the protein thats called Actin the gives the fin rays their stability, as opposed to the muscle and bone/cartilage in the other groups. I was under the impression from some of my biology professors that Actin is closely related to Keratin, the protein that makes up hair and fingernails.

To what extent the fins contain blood vessels and nerves that might cause damage and pain, i can't say, but the main component of the fin rays should react very much like fingernails.

I do think there is another matter that we touch on a lot here, at what point does the fishes well being have to become the priority over our enjoyment? Some people would argue that having fish at all is putting them in danger, others argue very extensive lighting and tanks are absolutely required. On the other end you have Dyed and Tattooed fish and the likes of Glofish, generally disliked things, but not totaly unknown in the aquarium world.

As far as my judgement, i'd say that this is not the worst thing that could be done to the fish, i'd generally say to be careful that your not hurting the fish and keep an eye out for infections, but as far as pain and suffering that we know things like tattooing causes, i'd be unlikely to lump this with that and condem it so harshly

 

[Atl300zx]

my point of view if this is probably no worse than someone clipping the ears of a dog...that being said....i think both are cruel.

 

[itafx]

I expect you're probably against de-beaking chicks too.

 

[src]

I expect you're probably against de-beaking chicks too.

Sounds to me like you are in the wrong place. You will find that most of the members here are pretty die-hard fish care advocates - they wouldn't think of trimming fins any more than you would think of giving your dog a boob-job, and consider it mistreatment.

If you are trying to convince someone that you are right, you picked the wrong subject and the wrong crowd. You asked for people's thoughts, and got them. Why continue?

 

[NoSvOrAx]

Cruelty aside...
Your having problems with your guppies losing part of their fins so you remove more of the fin? Isn't that adding to the problem...? Have you atleast treated the fish with something to prevent further loss due to fungus or bacterial infection?

 

[Phoenixphire55]

Clipping chick beaks is fine? if you're the kind of person who believes that then of course you dont feel bad about snipping the end of the fish's tail. Its a guppy... is it really worth the possibility of infection to have those barely noticeable bits on the end of the tail cut off? I thought they looked better before anyway. I agree entirely with src. You're not trying to find real information, you're trying to make the rest of us agree with you. The fact is, like src said, most people here care about the fish themselves more than they care about the aesthetics of their tail fins. If you want to cut their tails, go right ahead, but accept that most of us think it was a bad move.

 

[Phoenixphire55]

one more thing: Chicks are not de-beaked, the end of their beak is cauterized. Its even worse that you think their beaks are taken off and believe that thats an ok thing to do to an animal. Who are you? Cruella Deville? lol

 

[Angel.Zero]

I wish with all my heart a giant hand would reach out of the sky and lob off your feet because he didn't like your shoes. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever herd in the last 4 years of fish keeping. Even if you are correct in that it wasn't painful or even if it wasn't stressful even an expert biologist can't say for a 100% positive fact that this is the case and for that reason alone I wouldn't clip anything on my fish as I wouldn't want some hand to reach down and take off my leg cause it likes sword tails.

 

[hsherman1986]

It has been a long time since I have been on this board, and am shocked to see such a topic even started here. I would never even dream of trimming my fish's fins just because they were a little frayed. I would much rather dose with Melafix or Pima fix and have them GROW BACK than to trim the fins, reguardless of whether or not the trimming puts the fish in PAIN!! Guppies CAN and WILL nip each others fins, especially if you have a bunch of males, and only a couple, or no females!! Mine didi it all the time, until I provided them with more females. The ONLY way to fix the frayed fin problems is to dose accordingly, and WAIT!

..and yes, I am also against clipping dogs ears/tails, debeaking chicks, so on and so on....its just not NATURAL!!!!

 

[Sidi]

But, but, what about the neuticles??? Are those ok?

Perhaps the most disturbing interview I've ever seen was with the inventor of those things. He couldn't stop touching and petting them on his dog...now that's messed up.