Aquariums!! A mini Rant

[onthetrain]

My little fella keeps a small tank of pretty fishies. A few barbs and Tetra's.

I went down to my local fish store today to get some water conditioner and was thinking about buying a few extra fish to stock his tank.

Went for a bit of a browse and guess what I saw???

A tank of seahorses at £45 a throw and a bloody octopus for sale at £75!!

I guess this stinks of double standards, but I can't help feeling that things like Sea horses and Octopi should not be kept in home aquariums.

What say you?

PS, the seahorse tank did say they were tank bred. The shop was Southern Aquatics in Poole

[B]

tropical fish like those are all over the place... barely 10 miles down the road from us you can buy just about anything, puffers, sea horses, star fish... well basically you name it you can get it there...

the difference here is the one down the road to us openly say they are "importers" so no beautiful marine fish from bred supplies...

they are gorgeous but every time I think about it it does make me sad...

[milldog]

Marine Aquariums are getting alot more common in Swindon you can buy sharks at £400 each next to Hinders, they also sell coral

these are big money and isn't it better that they breed them rather than take them from the sea, also by breading the fish they react better to the water mix,

i have mixed feelings i like the aquarium's but would like to see them cheaper

[the goat]

I m still waiting for the local aquarium to deliver my blue whale
ordered it weeks ago now

[Depth-junkie]

Whats sad/bad about it??

I keep a 110gallon marine fish tank, with mixed hard and soft corals. All the species are kept in top health they have no predators in the tank etc etc.

I have also kept sea horses in a specias only tank, i have also had the said sea horses breed. Now i am pretty sure if they were not geting the right diet and in good/happy health breeding would not happen.

The problem is when people dont know what they are doing and just buy a certain fish because litlle jonny fancies a clown fish after he saw finding nemo etc. They dont really know what the fish/s require in regards tank set up, filtration, dietnatrual food etc etc.

In the right hands its no different to any other pet, the shop should vet the buyers knowledge before selling fragile species, to make sure the owner has the right set up/knowledge required for the selected animal.


Pic of my current marine tank and every thing you see is natural, rock, sand,corals calcaroius algaes etc etc no plastic false shit in this tank, and anyone who has seen it in the flesh will tell you how healthy all the corals and fish are. Some of the soft corals and fish have grown bigger than what you will see in the wild and all were grown from small frags etc, and this purely down to the fact that there are no predators to the fish or corals. So how is this sad???

ATB
Gareth

[PW1664]

Double standards you moaning 'ol Get

[onthetrain]

Originally Posted by Depth-junkie

Whats sad/bad about it??

So how is this sad???

ATB
Gareth

Gareth, didn't say it was sad mate, just that it didnt seem right to me to keep this type of species.

I accept that if species are well kept enough to breed they are probably happy enough.

I dont know why it seems wrong to me...It just does. So there

[onthetrain]

Originally Posted by PW1664

Double standards you moaning 'ol Get

Who woke you up

Where you been mate. Aint seen you for a while

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by onthetrain

My little fella keeps a small tank of pretty fishies. A few barbs and Tetra's.

I went down to my local fish store today to get some water conditioner and was thinking about buying a few extra fish to stock his tank.

Went for a bit of a browse and guess what I saw???

A tank of seahorses at £45 a throw and a bloody octopus for sale at £75!!

I guess this stinks of double standards, but I can't help feeling that things like Sea horses and Octopi should not be kept in home aquariums.

What say you?

PS, the seahorse tank did say they were tank bred. The shop was Southern Aquatics in Poole

There's a good chance that the seahorses may have cme from here:

Seahorse Australia

Seahorse Australia - Shop

A neighbour of mine was involved in setting it up, he's an abalone diver and did the collection (under licence) of the original brood stock, which was probably 10 years ago. Initially, they only bred the Tasmanian Big Bellied Seahorse, which are pretty big, I've seen them around 8 inches (200mm) in length in the wild.

Whilst thje original stock were wild collected, they have produced many thousands of progeny, a large number of which were released back intoi the wild in areas where the original stock were collected.

The biggest impact on seahorse stocks is collection for Chinese Medicine, these people are hoping that they may be able to break ino this market and maybe take some of the collecting pressure off wild populations.

Seahorse Australia

I don't personally see a problem with keeping captive bred fish.

As for octopus, the aquarium trade would be very small compared with that of octopus caught as food, just take a trip to Billingsgate, we see hundreds every day in fishmongers here. Go to the supermarket deli section and have a squiz at the marinara mix, it contains prawns, mussels, clams and baby octopus.

If you think about it, the higher price of live octopus for the aquarium market could mean a reduction in the numbers needed to be taken from the wild to sustain fishermens incomes.

Richard M.

[DIVE BUDDHA]

i must admit gareth the marine tank you have looks very nice !!!

and i as a freshwater aqauarium keeper know how hard it is to keep

freshwater fish let alone saltwater fish ! although me personaly i wouldnt keep

species like seahorses (personal choice) thats not to say they wouldnt look

nice in somebody elses aqaurium best wishes leigh