We can’t even agree on treating people here ethically. Good luck with sea creatures.
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I don't really understand ethics, so I probably haven't got any.
When my wife screams "Spider! Kill it!", I'll pick it up and put it outside. Not because of ethics, just because I don't want to harm it. After all, it hasn't harmed me (England, see? Our spiders don't bite. Much).
Likewise with the hermits in the post that started all this, I would not step on them, I'd find a way to keep them alive, even if I had to set up a small tank just for them. Nothing to do with ethics, I avoid killing most things because it's the way I am.
Wasps? Hate them. No mercy. When I was a kid I'd rear foreign or tropical moths (because our home grown ones are a bit dull). I had a few north american Robin moth larvae on a tree with a section netted to keep birds away, but they kept disappearing. I was down to my last one when I spotted the problem: a wasp was tearing a hole in it. The caterpillar was far too large for the wasp to carry away, but it killed it anyway. I know it was just a wasp doing what wasps do, but I hold a grudge.
Was that off topic?
Like I said, I'll put together a more nuanced answer shortly, but this explanation is a good place to start IMO.Not a bad take, but if it is ok to add animals to eliminate the pests, why would manually doing it be any less ethical.
I bring this only as I have used peppermint shrimp, and copperbanded butterfly for aipstasia control. Also aipstasia-X.
The copperbanded did an outstanding job, yet after the aipstasia were gone he too passed. I was more afraid that he would start in on my corals, so I was going to move him from one reef to the next and end up in one of my fowlers, but he died.
Would love to get another as I still have aipstasia in my other reef, but I feel that it would be wrong (unethical) as even with my experience I’m just not sure I can sustain the fish so my eliminating the larger aipstasia and letting the shrimp manage the smaller ones seems to make sense to me.
I find people throwing away corals away because the grow too much really sad, but if there is no market for them as frags, or no way to get them to a store that needs or wants them, it seems no different than trimming trees or the grass for the overall health of the coral or system.
So I don’t think anything in your list would be considered ethical or unethical.
Now I don’t know for sure but I assume (butt/u/me) that what the Forum Moderators are referencing is gross negligence or intent.
Dumb examples -
Telling someone to add a cup of bleach to their tank to kill algae DON’T DO THIS IT WILL KILL EVERYTHING *disclaimer. This would be unethical.
Starting a thread with the intention of “starting an argument”. Then degrading people who react.
Intentionally lying to someone to create a negative outcome. Would be hard to prove, but say a very experienced reefer (determined by the knowledge in their other posts/threads) then starts telling new reefers, “Sure you can add 15 fish to your 40 gallon breeder as soon as you set it up. Just change 10% of the water and double dose Prime every 12 hours.” Again this would just be wrong as an experienced reefer would know that the fish are going to die.
IMHO the ethical consideration in the TOS have more to do with our communities interaction with each other vs our particular reefing habits. I would also assume that posting about raising fish to kill so you can get new ones, or “bragging” about not maintaining a tank to the point of “harming its inhabitants” would fall in here also.
So follow the golden rule. Do unto others as your would have them do to you.
Thx Daniel.I've been following along in this conversation and trying to determine the most helpful way to weigh in. I'll give something with a little deeper explanation shortly, but for now, I really concur with the line of thought in this post by @HankstankXXXL750.
Like I said, I'll put together a more nuanced answer shortly, but this explanation is a good place to start IMO.
Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with you, I am at fault for a lot of the jokes on the other thread, this is because I knew this is a hot topic and no common ground could be found, for many reasons. Location on this fine planet, beliefs, husbandry skills, and many other variables. The fact of the matter is we should try and do what is best for the animal and if it means euthanizing an animal then it should be done with the least amount of pain possible. I truly do appreciate everyone's views on this and think that educating some folks is better than us arguing for the best answer, and I believe this thread has helped that alot.Thx Daniel.
As said before, even though many will not believe it, this is not a troll. Anyone that knows me, knows I am always curious of others thoughts on things. I also like clear definitions on things, so felt this was needed. Now I am not the best with getting things out via text, so sometimes things come off as not what I mean. That is just a fault of mine and I admit to it.
In the end, I was just trying to get input from others and see how much common ground we actually have, but that is fruitless it seems. It just goes to the whole hobby is unethical or I am a troll. Takes me back to the whole copper vs ttm thing and then the hybrid ttm thing. We could never agree on which was "best", but surprisingly we all agreed and proved all of those methods worked effectively. That is what I was aiming for here, but as usual, failed horribly lol.
I do believe we found some common ground though. While as simple as most of us care for the creatures, that is common ground. We also all fell like we should put most of the inhabitants in the best conditions we can. While this can be done in a few different ways, it is still the same end goal. The proper care (no matter the way there) of the critters in our tank.Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with you, I am at fault for a lot of the jokes on the other thread, this is because I knew this is a hot topic and no common ground could be found, for many reasons. Location on this fine planet, beliefs, husbandry skills, and many other variables. The fact of the matter is we should try and do what is best for the animal and if it means euthanizing an animal then it should be done with the least amount of pain possible. I truly do appreciate everyone's views on this and think that educating some folks is better than us arguing for the best answer, and I believe this thread has helped that alot.
You are correct once again old-timerI do believe we found some common ground though. While as simple as most of us care for the creatures, that is common ground. We also all fell like we should put most of the inhabitants in the best conditions we can. While this can be done in a few different ways, it is still the same end goal. The proper care (no matter the way there) of the critters in our tank.
Hopefully some have stepped back a little and can now see that there are many rods to get to the same result. Again, same thing about copper vs ttm debates years ago. No right or wrong way, just a "different way". But I like hearing the different ways, as one can learn from someone else's "way" or improve on their "way".