Hobby tainted

Of course not

Any sympathy she had for her family being cruel was lost when it became clear she was treating live animals like toys to discard

I expect that's the real reason she was so cagey and making poor analogies to buying trains and trading Pokemon cards

Yes, she absolutely is discarding them. They may not miss her in the same way as a dog or a cat, but she's still buying live animals, "playing" with them for a while and then getting rid of them when she loses interest.

Why not just grow plants or something instead? Why buy and discard live animals on a repeat cycle?

Fish aren't a hobby to be picked up and dropped when you get bored of them. They are living things and it's cruel to just get rid of them when you lose interest. I can understand your family's concerns.

As someone who is autistic I honestly think you need to have an ASD/ADHD assessment.

She’s not just “discarding” the fish as someone upthread has described it. She either finds them a new owner or takes them back to the pet shop where no doubt they will get a new owner. Is anyone seriously suggesting that fish have feelings to the extent they will have bonded with her and be sad that they are now in a different fish tank in someone’s else’s home?
I am strongly pro animal rights but I think these fish will be ok as long as they have appropriate food and clean water in a nice tank. They are not going to be swimming round and round saying we miss OP! take us back to OP! OP was the best!
Totally different scenario from adopting a puppy, bonding with it, then sending it back to the shelter. That’s cruel, and that’s what’s meant by “discarding”.

Yeah something like that seems to be a good way to divert the interest of this hobby without involving fish being purchased and sent back, or giving away.

Have just read more responses, I too hadn't realised the hobby was fish, oppology to rescue dog, now I see why you posted

No !! Had no idea hobby was related to live animals. Thanks for alerting me. Have now added my thoughts!

Maybe op could just cultivate aquatic plants and sell on? Prob a good income stream!

Change of mind. Didn’t realise this was related to live animals. Far from keen on
animals being bred outside of professionally run and accredited pet breeders. I would never buy a pet via social media or online marketplaces !!

It seems very strange to enjoy creating the perfect environment for the fish, and feeding them a perfect diet, then giving them back or passing them on. If you really boil down to the essentials, your enjoyment isn't in providing the fish with a good home for their life span, its in the crafting and maintenance of the aquatics. Alot of people might not balk at the idea because fish are often treated as less than in the let's world, or devoid of complex awareness, but they're living creatures nonetheless.

I can see why your family weren't happy about it tbh. Of course the local shop takes them back, they can resell them. But as you know as you create set ups, it's not as simple as chucking fish back in a tank (or if they do do that then that's even worse, poor fish essentially reduced to playthings!) If you'd kept them and been a fish hobbyist and your hobby was making their environment better and bigger with plants etc, then that would be an example of an acceptable fish keeling hobby, it sounds like your family object to the pick up out down element. As any humane person would?

Obviously I didn't mean pets, I would not even class a pet as a hobby, ( a lifetime responsibility and duty of care)a totally different ball game

My AuDHD son is like this with hobbies - totally obsessed and doesn't shut up about something for a few months then totally gets dropped for something else (often coming back again). The non stop enthusiasm when he gets started on a new hobby is pretty overwhelming.

However, I'd say you are highly unreasonable to have fish keeping as a hobby like this. Living animals shouldn't be punted back and forward as a whim like that. To compare it with train collecting is totally misleading.

It's because OP is female. If this was a bloke discarding live animals on a whim, people would be calling him an animal abuser.

Fish keeping is lovely, I did it myself, but like you kept them as pets through their life span. The issue is the op gets bored and then gives away or returns the fish to the shop, so they get purchased, quarantined, get used to a new environment and then sent off again. Some of these fish have relatively short life spans compared with carp type cold water fish, so that's alot of upheaval.

My DP claims he wants more fish. During Covid we had a big clear out, including cleaning and emptying the fish tank. The empty tank has remained in the shelf since then, waiting.
DD and I moved it to the garage last month and DP barely noticed.
Enjoy your hobby, OP!

Yup, my attitude changed completely when I found out it was living creatures and not something like trains or crocheting.

I think the family are justified in objecting to her behaving this way over living creatures.

However, I also didn't like the OP's comment fairly early on poking fun at people having 10 dolls' houses and 30 cats. It's not ok for her family to make fun of/be vitriolic/whatever about her fishkeeping but she can make fun of other people's hobbies. Quite nasty actually.

Not really fish'keeping' is it?
Fish-have-till-bored-then-give 'em away for shinier ones?

I’m confused. Is your hobby to do with trains, or are you using them as an example?
if so, why not just say your actual hobby?
if it were me, I’d make sure I stuck to it this time just to prove your family wrong!

Not when it's living creatures.

How can you give them away on ebay when it's not permitted to trade live animals.? After reading all your updates i agree with your family. Living beings arent in existence to be picked up and dropped..with that kind of commitment please dont get a dog, or a cat, or a rabbbit......or any living being.

To me, that's the whole point of a hobby, you dip in and out as the fancy takes you!

Nasty post. Why are you talking about the OP in the third person as if she's not reading it?

So a husband and two kids ribbed the mother about her lack of commitment to real live animals that she just shoves in a plastic bag and takes back to the shop when she's fed up with them? I just cannot imagine why.

I'm annoyed because a) I've spent far too much time working out what this was all about, and b) I thought the OP was building a train layout (yes, some women do do this - I have a small n-gauge industrial layout myself 😆) and I was going to leap to her defence.

Not any more.

The OP said quite early in. Fishkeeping.

This thread gets weirder the longer you read it. I was going to say that if you're going to have a hobby like toy train sets you should be prepared for some banter, but temporary fish keeping is just insane.