hard to keep fish?

[tullsterx]

Right. And it's a real conundum or sorts. I love marine fish and keeping them, but I wonder about the ethics of fishkeeping. There should be a code of ethics for proper fishkeeping.

How many threads about Copperbands not feeding, or people with ich in a reef tank that have no QT or manner to treat their ill fish, or other such problems do you see around here? Lots. Or threads about how their last Angelfish died and now their new one is not feeding? Duh.

Personally, I endevour to have happy, well-adjusted fish. I think that requires patience, planning and keeping your ambitions in check.

 

[dorkfish]

that's sort of what I was trying to find out, what your opinion on hard to keep fish is, the poll was kind of unesisary. I am not planning to get any hard to keep fish at this point in time and the only ones I think I'll ever get is discus and maybe a mandrin. my thinking was that once a fish was in captivity, it's pretty much doomed to a life in captivity but I forgot how buying a certain fish would promote the store to buy more and the store buying more means more of them end up living a horible life. both the fish above I do not think of as hard to keep, just a lot of people buy them without knowing anything about them, or rely on the LFS to give them "good" information. I would gues that atleast 80-90% of all fish sold in fish stores will end up living really horible lives, so maybe even having an LFS is cruel to the fish. even the seemingly easiest to keep fish (goldfish) are mistreated (I would gues atleast 90-95% mistreated) so wouldn't even buying a goldfish and properly treating it be kind of promoting the store to buy more that would end up mistreated?

 

[FloridaBoy]

that's sort of what I was trying to find out, what your opinion on hard to keep fish is, the poll was kind of unesisary. I am not planning to get any hard to keep fish at this point in time and the only ones I think I'll ever get is discus and maybe a mandrin. my thinking was that once a fish was in captivity, it's pretty much doomed to a life in captivity but I forgot how buying a certain fish would promote the store to buy more and the store buying more means more of them end up living a horible life.

Ahh, now you're getting it my friend, you need to be aware there is a "list" of delicate marine species which should never appear in the LFS due to the terrible mortality rates, this list is well known by anyone in the trade and yet is ignored by many retailers. Even experts will struggle to succeed with these, and the average beginner has no chance at all. These animals seldom if ever adapt to captivity, ship poorly or demand a difficult diet.

Even though you feel sorry for the hapless specimen and are tempted to "give it a better home," better to pass them by and let the LFS take the hit on them; buying certain delicate species only encourages more orders and continued exploitation. It should be noted, some animals like host anemones and echinoderms will live for 100 years or more in the wild, so we need to adopt a "big picture" attitude of stewardship with regard to our purchases.

It is imperative that more aquarists gain this knowledge, similar lists can be found on a lot of the forums, there is one on this forum somewhere.
I have a sticky here which may help:
http://www.aquahobby.com/board/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=9b8a10677057aa28ea3b369b01eb3d30