Titan Trigger... yes, really!

[Gweeds1980]

No, not one of those posts like 'can I keep a titan trigger in a 40b?'...

More an ethical question...

I was passing one of my less frequented LFS the other day and I popped in on a whim. They often have oddballs in and I was feeling adventurous. As it was I didn't buy anything but I did see for sale (at £39 I might add) a juvenile Titan Trigger (Balistoides viridescens).

Gets me to thinking, does anyone (privately) have a suitable aquarium for a 30 inch swimming tank with a belligerent attitude??

Why are these fish available, surely there should be some regulation around the import of fish that can grow to these sizes?

It frankly made me furious, I made the point to one of the staff and they just shrugged it off, saying they didn't look after the ordering or selecting of livestock.

Surely this is akin to selling someone a Rhino for their back yard or a saltwater croc to keep in their garden pond... imo this practice should be banned.

Maybe there should be a maximum size permitted for general sale and for anything bigger, a special order can be made but the buyer would need to provide proof of suitable accommodation... one for CITES maybe?

What are peoples thoughts on fish like this being imported?

Looked just like this, about 4 inches long:

 

[Waters]

Unfortunately they are available because people buy them. There is a LFS by me that sells freshwater red tailed catfish and sturgeon...both of which grow way over 5 feet.

 

[miyags]

I feel that way about vlamingi tangs. They sell them everywhere. Everybody's going to get a larger tank or trade them in when they get big. REALLY!!!. They make a 500 gallon tank look small

 

[4FordFamily]

A 2.5 foot fish is definitely too large for 99% of hobbyists but there are a few that have giant wall tanks FOWLR that could accommodate it.

That said, I'm not sure why someone would WANT one based on their temperament and aggression towards smaller fish (so even a vlamingi would be small) but it's possible I guess. It's a neat looking fish, I understand the demand aesthetically. If you had a very aggressive large predator tank I suppose it would do fine. Or a shark tank.

Anyway, it's sad because we know with almost certainty this fish will go to a lesser home.

Most zoo or public large aquaria won't want them because of their temperament as well -- so the fish is at a large disadvantage.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I feel that way about vlamingi tangs. They sell them everywhere. Everybody's going to get a larger tank or trade them in when they get big. REALLY!!!. They make a 500 gallon tank look small

Ha ha... funnily enough I was torn on getting one, but decided my 99 x 26 x 26 was too small in the end... bare in mind I've never seen a vlamingi over 18 inches and these guys get another 12 inches on that!

 

[Gweeds1980]

Unfortunately they are available because people buy them. There is a LFS by me that sells freshwater red tailed catfish and sturgeon...both of which grow way over 5 feet.

I used to keep big FW in my current reef tank a few years ago (before I put saltwater in it obviously!)... I'd consider it a pretty decent size tank but I've never kept anything huge in it... just not fair.

Sturgeon I guess is a bit different, you'd keep them in an outdoor pond so could get something several thousand gallons.

I've seen a few decent homes in the UK for a RTC, one guy in Leicester waterproofed half his basement and filled it up with water... that was a few thousand gallons and there's the guy from monsterfishkeepers who's got a 55k gallon tank... but they are so few and far between they don't justify the number of these big fish for sale.

 

[lion king]

It's wrong!!! but most of what you read is folklore. In captivity titans have been kept for 10 years or more and still barely reach 10". In reality the titan is more akin to the queen trigger but grows much slower. I wish they wouldn't bring fish like this in to lfs, someone walking in to adequately keep a fish like this will be very rare. They'll probably sell it to someone with a 180 and it will murder everything in their tank. He could live in a 300 with just 2 or 3 other aggressive tankmates for 10 plus years; But most people with tanks that big want a dozen fish.

I just saw a Japanese leopard shark at an lfs and they were ready to bag him up for my tropical 210g. Just more examples of why my rant on lfs last week.

 

[JaimeAdams]

I'll play Devils Advocate here. There is a pet store near me that sometimes gets a bad rap for selling crocodiles, alligators and stuff like that. I also work in a fish store, not the same one we are strictly saltwater fish/coral type place. If I or anyone wants a pet crocodile I am going to get one wether I go buy it from my local pet shop or simply order it online. I used to be heavy into herpetology years ago before the internet, but we still had plenty of places to buy exotics from, instead of websites we had mail lists. I could call up one of the wholesalers and florida that I dealt with and get crocodiles, alligators, cobras, 20+ foot pythons whatever I wanted. I will agree that you get more impulse buyers when it is sitting right in front of you with a price tag on it, but realistically if someone wants something they are going to buy it from you or buy it from your competition down the road.

My job and ethical responsibility to me is that I inform these customers who want to put Dory in their 13 gallon Evo about her potential size. I did actually tell a guy that I couldn't ethically sell him the Hippo Tang for his 13 gallon. There have been many times where I have advised people against putting a certain fish in their tank and the next time that I see them they went online or to another store and bought the fish anyways. My job is to advise people, but I can't make their decisions for them. The same can be said for non photosynthetic coral. People come in all the time with pictures off of google of next to impossible to keep coral pieces and want you to order it for them. That being said there are big tanks out there. One of the coolest fish I ever saw were huge full grown vlamingi tangs begging for food. Granted they were is 4 x 4 x 20 foot tanks, but those sizes are out there.

The rant should be about local fish stores not training their staff and just hiring a bunch of younger people for lower wages. Or maybe it should be about us hobbyist always looking for the best deals and cheapest prices out there so the local fish store owner can't afford to hire experienced people with a higher salary because we want cheap cheap cheap or we just buy it on-line or out of someones basement off of Craigslist with no over head costs to pay for.

 

[Gweeds1980]

I'll play Devils Advocate here. There is a pet store near me that sometimes gets a bad rap for selling crocodiles, alligators and stuff like that. I also work in a fish store, not the same one we are strictly saltwater fish/coral type place. If I or anyone wants a pet crocodile I am going to get one wether I go buy it from my local pet shop or simply order it online. I used to be heavy into herpetology years ago before the internet, but we still had plenty of places to buy exotics from, instead of websites we had mail lists. I could call up one of the wholesalers and florida that I dealt with and get crocodiles, alligators, cobras, 20+ foot pythons whatever I wanted. I will agree that you get more impulse buyers when it is sitting right in front of you with a price tag on it, but realistically if someone wants something they are going to buy it from you or buy it from your competition down the road.

My job and ethical responsibility to me is that I inform these customers who want to put Dory in their 13 gallon Evo about her potential size. I did actually tell a guy that I couldn't ethically sell him the Hippo Tang for his 13 gallon. There have been many times where I have advised people against putting a certain fish in their tank and the next time that I see them they went online or to another store and bought the fish anyways. My job is to advise people, but I can't make their decisions for them. The same can be said for non photosynthetic coral. People come in all the time with pictures off of google of next to impossible to keep coral pieces and want you to order it for them. That being said there are big tanks out there. One of the coolest fish I ever saw were huge full grown vlamingi tangs begging for food. Granted they were is 4 x 4 x 20 foot tanks, but those sizes are out there.

The rant should be about local fish stores not training their staff and just hiring a bunch of younger people for lower wages. Or maybe it should be about us hobbyist always looking for the best deals and cheapest prices out there so the local fish store owner can't afford to hire experienced people with a higher salary because we want cheap cheap cheap or we just buy it on-line or out of someones basement off of Craigslist with no over head costs to pay for.

Yeah, it happens amd as you say, if the shop down the road will sell it then being principled will just cost you profit.

I guess this is why I was thinking do we need regulation? If no LFS could stock these titans / alligators / RTC / Rhinos / (insert inappropriate pet here) but they could supply them as a special order following a documented survey on their future accommodation then everyone would be on a level playing field.

Obviously the regulation would need to be worldwide, not just specific to the UK or US, which I would have thought is where the likes of CITES could step in.

At least that way the 1% who can actually cater for these animals would still be able to get them but the 99% who can't wouldn't be tempted in the first place.

 

[mort]

Hi gweeds I think I recognise you from a UK Forum. Where was this monster?

For me it's simple. If someone wants this species they should have it ordered in when they can prove they have an appropriate tank for its whole life. I used to run a lfs and the local competitors regularly had monsters in like potentially 1m long filefish and parrotfish, snappers etc when the largest thing I normally stocked was a sailfin tang.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Hi gweeds I think I recognise you from a UK Forum. Where was this monster?

For me it's simple. If someone wants this species they should have it ordered in when they can prove they have an appropriate tank for its whole life. I used to run a lfs and the local competitors regularly had monsters in like potentially 1m long filefish and parrotfish, snappers etc when the largest thing I normally stocked was a sailfin tang.

Agreed... yes, I'm on UR too.

Not sure if I'm supposed to mention, but I guess it'll be removed if I'm not... it was Swallow Aquatics at East Harling, norfolk.

 

[becks]

Sometimes swallows gets fish in for local public aquariums and hold them for a few weeks prior to them collecting it. My local zoo use swallows to source their fish.

 

[mort]

Agreed... yes, I'm on UR too.

Not sure if I'm supposed to mention, but I guess it'll be removed if I'm not... it was Swallow Aquatics at East Harling, norfolk.

Funnily enough they used to be the competition and where I thought you might have seen it. They arent the only shop in the area that stretches the boundaries of what should be imported however, so it's likely still a countrywide problem.

 

[Gweeds1980]

Funnily enough they used to be the competition and where I thought you might have seen it. They arent the only shop in the area that stretches the boundaries of what should be imported however, so it's likely still a countrywide problem.

Ah, are you still around this area?

 

[Gweeds1980]

Sometimes swallows gets fish in for local public aquariums and hold them for a few weeks prior to them collecting it. My local zoo use swallows to source their fish.

It was for sale... £39!

 

[becks]

It was for sale... £39!

Oh, yeah in that case it should not been for sale fish like that should be ordered in specifically imo

 

[mort]

Sometimes swallows gets fish in for local public aquariums and hold them for a few weeks prior to them collecting it. My local zoo use swallows to source their fish.

In my personal opinion and I realise others won't share the same view and that there is more than one shop in the chain, but I wouldn't buy a fish from this particular shop and I'd be surprised if a professional aquarium would. Again this is just my personal opinion of what I have seen over the years in this one shop not others in the chain. I'm also not the kind of person to bad mouth anyone but in the last decade of popping in randomly I have seen no improvement. The tropicals on the other hand are much better but you still see monsters from time to time although they did used to take them back when the tank was busted.

Ah, are you still around this area?

Yes still around here but not in aquatics anymore.

 

[Gweeds1980]

In my personal opinion and I realise others won't share the same view and that there is more than one shop in the chain, but I wouldn't buy a fish from this particular shop and I'd be surprised if a professional aquarium would. Again this is just my personal opinion of what I have seen over the years in this one shop not others in the chain. I'm also not the kind of person to bad mouth anyone but in the last decade of popping in randomly I have seen no improvement. The tropicals on the other hand are much better but you still see monsters from time to time although they did used to take them back when the tank was busted.



Yes still around here but not in aquatics anymore.

Agreed! I do occasionally attempt to save one or two if I see them suffering... they've done a few good deals for me that way. Not the best way to buy new fish though!!

 

[finncole14524]

Honestly I have a similar story so
When I was 6 me and my dad used to go to this LFS. One day we walked in and they had about anything between 10 and 30 baby red tail catfish inside a 10 gallon (38 litre) this LFS also sold me and volitan lionfish for my 30 gallon and it died of marine velvet or ich sadly

 

[Mortie31]

These sort of discussions make me so angry, there is very little ethical about this hobby, we just make decisions we are comfortable with and tend to turn a blind eye to the real picture... really no one should be keeping anything wild in captivity, just because you don't agree with big fish for sale in LFS it's no different from putting a Naso in 50g. The educated and informed won't make as many poor spontaneous decisions but what is the true price of the coral or fish you are buying....