to have a fish tank?

[Halfway]

I had a very good friend over today who is a life-long vegetarian and is generally very aware of animal treatment issues (although she is not an activist).

I really respect her, she's very kind, and not pushy with her views at all, although I often prompt her for her thoughts because I am interested and curious about where she is coming from.

I find fish really beautiful and relaxing (always have), and have a moderate sized aquarium in our living room which I take very obsessive good care of.

We got mutually talking about animals, and something she said really stuck in my head. I had said something about 'how much I enjoyed looking after and watching my fish', and she agreed that they were beautiful but that she would 'find them much more beautiful swimming around freely in nature.'

I'm still a bit about this statement, because it actually made me look at the whole setup in a completely different way. I think she may be right!

I've gone from looking at them as my 'beautiful little pets that I admire and tend to', to 'wild animals I have plucked from their natural environment and caged'.

This hit my brain like a bolt, and now I'm wondering whether I've been incredibly naieve and am actually mistreating the animals I thought I loved, or whether this is an extreme way of looking at it.

I'm posting because I've lost all personal sense of perspective on this issue, and am heavily biased because I know I love keeping the fish (and instinctively want to justify this). Am now genuinely confused as to whether it is wrong/harmful to keep fish like this?

I can be very behind-the-times socially (am quite introverted and a bit awkward), so would really to get a more balanced sense of what people think.

They're bred in pet shops.

She's being OTT about the veggie thing.

I've been thinking about getting a fish tank but not sure how fair it is on the fish either. My family had fish and hamsters when I was growing up and I wasn't entirely sure that they were happy in a small container (especially the hamsters, but we let them out for a run round most days).
I was looking at all the stuff you can buy for fishtanks and wondering what the fish would really prefer: a spongebob model and pink/blue/purple plastic plants or whether I should get living plants and more natural objects for a tank.

You can tell if fish are stressed can't you?

Bear in mind that some people think that no animals should be kept as pets.

Not sure where I stand on fish. I'm not a fan of caged animals generally but I don't think fish are developed enough to suffer the same stress that, for example, a caged bird would, so long as the tank is big enough.

I'm prepared to be proved wrong by any fish experts though!

Depends how well you keep your fish. If you have an Oscar in a two foot tank she has a point. Something like a betta, naturally lives in very small spaces.

Tell your friend, they are far happier in your tank as in the wild they would get eaten by all the nasty non vegetarian fish out there

YABU. I have a fish tank and am very unreasonable

Iv got a small tank with bout 5 fish. Every time i look at them they are swimming about quite the thing. chasing each other and when i go near the tank they all huddle up towards me.
Dont see how keeping a fish in a suitable size tank where it can swim about no problem is cruelty. Id carry on enjoying your fish.

Stressed fish do display odd behaviours. They can gasp, swim oddly, clamp fins shut, develop rashes or white spot. Good fish owners are aware of this, and you can also get treatments to reduce stress when they are likely to get upset, say during water changes.

My fish always seemed happy enough. She would spend most of the day digging and arranging the gravel how she wanted, and follow me around from behind the glass begging for food!

I thought that some of the rare freshwater tropical species were wild-captured from already dwindling populations. That and The reality of captive breeding is still too harsh for some of the most ardent animal rights types (many fish do eat their young, high mortality rate, easy to kill a lot off with careless mistakes).

So there are issues, but not necessarily any that apply to you.

What sort of tank do you have?

We have a marine, and I have the same feelings you do. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I want to set them all free somehow. Everything we have in there is tank bred, we buy from a small independant retailer so we trust him, but unfortunately the rock came out of the sea in Thailand

I try to console myself with the fact that whenever I have seen the type of fish we have in the sea (I scuba dive) then they never go very far from their own reef anyway, so as we have a big tank, the life our fish live is probably not very different to fish in the wild.

Watch fish in the sea. They do not 'swim round freely', they spend their whole time avoiding being eaten by other fish/crabs/marine life. Especially sea fish.

Being in a big enough tank, is living in a paradise. Most fish 'live' in a very restricted space, that is their territory. They eat each other alive, if they start to get weak, they are one of the most ruthless creatures alive.

I think that fish do have memories, longer than it is thought, but they can be kept humainly.

as long as you are completely obsessive about water quality, management, and you don't over stock then you are not being cruel in anyway.

Mine are little (mostly tetras and barbs), with live plants and sand in a 90 litre tank. Its always been a bit of a dream to branch out into larger species (like angelfish), or even saltwater fish if we ever get into a comfortable enough financial situation.

But I'm now regarding my hobby rather more suspiciously... it literally hadn't occurred to me that I might be causing harm.

But I will change if that is what it boils down to, I just don't trust myself to weigh it up fairly, so I really do appreciate all the input.

Your fish will be far happier with you in their tank than out in the wild being chased and eaten. They'd probably be dead by now. I once caught some river minnows and put them in a tank. They lived and did well until, one by one, they developed deformities. They had outlived their natural lifespan and were starting to suffer, so I had to kill them.

I have a fishtank and I never feel guilty about it because I know the fish are well cared for

Read this OP.

All the fish I keep have been bred in captivity, the majority by local breeder whom I know are very conscientious (in fact, most have been born in my own tanks), some are from species now extinct in the wild through habitat loss so will only survive if they are bred by people like me.

If you want to practise ethical fishkeeping, these are some ways:

stick to freshwater rather than marine

buy direct from breeders at auctions (join your local fishkeeping society)

or consider fish that are wild caught from sustainable schemes

consider breeding

give careful thought to your choice of species so that their needs for space, territory, water type etc are met

she is being a bit of an activist about it they are bred in captivity they are not trawling the oceans and bringing the fish that way , well not if you got to a good breeder , she is being a bit meh about it , enjoy your fish i have fish and love them

oh and the wild isnt as its cracked up to be as somebody else said its fish eat fish out there if you have a good tank fish are fine and you are happy