Store selling Aquababies - CRUEL!

The sad truth is we are really all being a little hypocritical. We all have aquariums for our own personal enjoyment and the fact is that fish, just like birds, turtles, lizards, snakes and any other caged animal would much rather be living in their natural habitat. Having said that, I do agree that living quaters for these aqua babies and betas, just suck and is somewhat cruel. Ive heard many people speak of "rescuing" these guys. Rescuing as someone also pointed out will just increase demand and perpetuate the market. So whats my point? Well, I dont have one!
 
To me, I believe the crab thing is a lot less cruel to fish being in a little container, but cruel nonetheless. As someone stated, as long as there is a market for these things, people will buy them. Try drugs, they're bad sure enough, but people buy them and people will sell as long as people want to buy these things.

5) Fish do not get lonely and one or two fish are fine in your little tank.
This is straight from their site, and this is a load of *expletive*. Wow, I didn't know people would just lie like this...

Wow, they are cheap, though. I think I'll buy one, take out the things in it and put it in a real aquarium, because $5 for 3 fish, a ramshorn snail, and plant are REALLY cheap. At PetSmart, altogether, the same would cost like $7-$10...
 
"AquaBabies contains hardy fish species that are grown specially for small aquariums and live comfortably from 60-85o F. If properly cared for, cleaning is seldom necessary. (3-4 times a year)"

WHAT?!?!?!
 
I had one of those YEARS ago. IIRC it had two or three guppies in it, and I could hold it in my small, 10 year old hand. We found them I think at Target. I think they only lasted a few weeks,
 
We had these Aquababies in Scotland to for a while. Thank god i haven't saw them in age's though!

We had a guy at my local shopping mall who had set up a stall and was selling them. It was nearly alway's Neon Tetra's, very young, but, he had at least 6 in every little coffin... sorry tank.....as he called them.

My friend's and me agreed this was so cruel, and quizzed the guy selling them as to what kind of fish, how long they would live, they're so called ecosystem and size they would grow to. He in turn told us, this tiny tank has everything they need to survive,the fish would grow NO bigger as they were already full size adult's, they would only need fed once or twice a week, and would live as long as 5 year's and called them "dwarf tetra's"!!

I didn't know whether to laugh at him for trying to sell me on so much rubbish or to cry at the fact that people not informed beleived every word he said!!

After this we decided to get a small petition in order, we stood quite close to his stall and handed out leaflet's, just to inform people as to what Aquababies REALLY were, and asked them to sign our petition.

The guy wasn't at all happy with us as you can imagine :rant:

To cut a long story short, after just under a day of this the manager revoked his license to sell them. We had attained so many signature's, that it was obvious when people understood exactly what was happening, they too thought it was cruel and barbaric, as did the manager who was great!!

As you can imagine we were really pleased. The seller wasn't though, Ha!! :p
 
Where is the outrage, where are the angry petitioners, for a much more common and much more upsetting problem than the "aquababies"? Who speaks for the common goldfish condemned to less than 100 gallons? I'm sure that we've all seen this more than we've seen the Aquababies.





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You might want to condemn me here, but I find the whole aqua trade itself to be as bad as slave trading. How many fish have suffered in petshops and who knows what goes on at fish farms.... I love the fish and don't want to think badly, but I wonder how happy they are in our tanks even though we give them best of care. We keep fish for our personal enjoyment, not in thier best intersts. I'm sure if they had their 'druthers, it would be back to their natural habitats. :( But aqua babies is an awful novelty and just outright cruel.
 
Swimfins said:
You might want to condemn me here, but I find the whole aqua trade itself to be as bad as slave trading. How many fish have suffered in petshops and who knows what goes on at fish farms.... I love the fish and don't want to think badly, but I wonder how happy they are in our tanks even though we give them best of care. We keep fish for our personal enjoyment, not in thier best intersts. I'm sure if they had their 'druthers, it would be back to their natural habitats. :( But aqua babies is an awful novelty and just outright cruel.
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And thus, those of us who understand fish (or try to at least) have an obligation to educate the ignorant masses that pour into petshops in search of amusement. There are many things in life that I think are as terrible... sweatshops, puppy mills, WalMart.... My goal is to provide the best habitat that I can for the fish that I choose for companions. And in doing so, people that see my tanks will learn that there is so much more to fishkeeping than putting a poor little feeder goldfish into a little bowl. I can't stop the stupid things that occur in the aquarium trade, but I can do my part to be responsible. After all... isn't that what all of us here on this forum strive for?
 
Swimfins said:
You might want to condemn me here, but I find the whole aqua trade itself to be as bad as slave trading. How many fish have suffered in petshops and who knows what goes on at fish farms.... I love the fish and don't want to think badly, but I wonder how happy they are in our tanks even though we give them best of care. We keep fish for our personal enjoyment, not in thier best intersts. I'm sure if they had their 'druthers, it would be back to their natural habitats.
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But for every "dark cloud" there can be found a silver lining. Some fish exist today only because they are popular aquarium fish (white cloud mountain minnow), and habitats in South America are being protected from slash n' burn cattle farming solely because of aquarium fish, such as cardinal tetras and many loracids. The exportation of these fish provides a lot of revenue, which in turn helps to justify their protection and the protection of their habitats to many in the area.
 
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