YOUR OPINION- are fish truly happy in captivity?

[Lyss]

You are missing the my point. Home schooling is educational of course but you are not keeping a reef for home schooling are you? I am not and while my 5 years old can tell the name of most of the corals and fish in there I don’t see it more educational than having a hamster. You can guess my preference

So then YOU don’t use it as an educational tool. Many folks do, though. It may not be the primary function, but it’s a secondary benefit. I have personally gotten much educational value from mine, learning about marine biology, microbiology, and water chemistry. And if it makes even one visitor to my home more interested in ocean preservation I think it has proven its value. I’ve got family who went home and watched Chasing Coral on Netflix after admiring my tank and learning from me how the world’s coral reefs are in danger.

 

[F i s h y]

Really though. Ignoring the ontological/existential questions of composition regarding “happiness”

why do we assume that our understanding of happiness, our experience of it, is the measuring stick that’s applicable to other life forms?

Cannot see the trees because of the forrest...

 

[homer1475]

Don't know, don't care.

My fish and tank are there for my happiness, not theirs.

Eating, living, and fat. Can't really say they are happy, but if they were not happy, they wouldn't be thriving.

What ever happened to common sense?

 

[atoll]

Good question and one I have posed in the past. However many years ago I hit on my philosophy to keeping a reef which has stood me in good stead all these years.
1/ I only keep small fish in a large a tank as I can afford to run 12p gallon. This isn't 10% true as I took in FOC a yellow tang that was being bullied by another in a friends tank. I resisted many times before I agreed and rescued it from his sump. I am still not entirely happy keeping it but as it recovers I may move it on.
2/ I try to keep fish in the way they would be on the reef which includes many things as below.
3/ I try and create an environment that replicates as much as possible where they are found on the reef.
4/ I keep fish that generally don't stray far from their reefscape.
5/ Similar foods.
6/ similar feeding as in often feeding a little and often again as they would feed on the reef.
7/ No aggressive fish or predators.
8/ similar water flow to the reef.
9/ I keep excellent water quality.
10/ I keep a high oxygen content which I believe adds to the overall health and vitality of my fish.
11/ I keep my fish as much as possible in pairs or small groups as found in nature on the reef.
12/ I have a pair of clowns in a magnifica anemone as they would be found in nature which reinforces some if my points above. I have a trio of african flameback Angel's. 7 small blue damsels pair of yellow wrasse, pair of algae blennies,pair of cleaner wrasse and a pair of Royal grammas. Most of my fish spawn in my aquarium.

So yes, I would say my fish are happy due to the fact I try as us reasonably possible (add your interpretation of reasonable) to provide fir their needs and well being.

 

[atoll]

One point to my last post. Don't assume if a fish is captive bread it's happy.if a human was captive bread and put in a small room all her/his life he/she would probably exhibit mental problems at least. Don't get me wrong captive bread fish I applaud but genetics come first Point in question. My clowns have never seen an anemone but within hours of putting my Mag nem.in were playing in its tentacles.

 

[N.Sreefer]

Do I think they can be healthy in captivity? Yes. Do I think they can be happy? No, because despite the temptation to do so with ones pets I do not anthropomorphise. Assigning complex emotion to an animal with such a simple brain is not being realistic.

 

[atoll]

Do I think they can be healthy in captivity? Yes. Do I think they can be happy? No, because despite the temptation to do so with ones pets I do not anthropomorphise. Assigning complex emotion to an animal with such a simple brain is not being realistic.

Doesn't that depend on what WE interpret as happy. Perhaps content would be a better word. Our ideas of happiness are more complex and far reaching I agree. Stress free and replicating their environment goes a long way to the contentment of many animals inc fish IMO.

 

[Timfish]

. . . Unless you have stream of people learning beside your tank I wouldn’t say your tank classed as educational. . . .

If any one's tank teaches someone or more importantly motivates someone to learn more about reef systems it's educational. An excellent example I know from personal communications is Dr. Burkepile, a renown researcher who's published numerous papers on reef systems and was inspired to pursue his carrer by home aquariums he kept. I just don't understand why you're saying home aquariums can't be educational or that the educational benefits they provide can't have world wide influence.

The average is way lower than in the wild.. . .

Only if you ignore the multitude of juveniles that die before reaching sexual maturity. Like one of the female clowns mentioned in one of the papers I linked that produced an estimated 160,000+ babies in her lifetime.

 

[N.Sreefer]

Doesn't that depend on what WE interpret as happy. Perhaps content would be a better word. Our ideas of happiness are more complex and far reaching I agree. Stress free and replicating their environment goes a long way to the contentment of many animals inc fish IMO.

True I agree and I believe content is a better way of putting it. I also believe its our responsibility to give any animal in our care the least stress free existence we can afford them. But I think its important not to assign complex emotion to such basic brains (as far as self awareness goes).

 

[atoll]

True I agree and I believe content is a better way of putting it. I also believe its our responsibility to give any animal in our care the least stress free existence we can afford them. But I think its important not to assign complex emotion to such basic brains (as far as self awareness goes).

Agree. Genetics and whats written into the animals brain. I have often written about the negative affect stress has on our animals hence my longish post above.

 

[Jeffcb]

 

[attiland]

If any one's tank teaches someone or more importantly motivates someone to learn more about reef systems it's educational. An excellent example I know from personal communications is Dr. Burkepile, a renown researcher who's published numerous papers on reef systems and was inspired to pursue his carrer by home aquariums he kept. I just don't understand why you're saying home aquariums can't be educational or that the educational benefits they provide can't have world wide influence.

in that case my son’s hamster is educational. Yay I thought it was only a pet

Only if you ignore the multitude of juveniles that die before reaching sexual maturity. Like one of the female clowns mentioned in one of the papers I linked that produced an estimated 160,000+ babies in her lifetime.

You would think at first. How many clown eggs reach adulthood in your tank?
Just my experience from the past when I was keeping cichlids. I had breading pairs of Leptosomas - these guys - I loved them

They were mating every 3 weeks and let the fry out in about 3 weeks after about 15-20 each time . There was a couple of weeks break after. This means I had about 120 from each female a year. I had 5 females in that tank so about 600 a year. Guess how many survived in a year without intervention?

keep guessing….


keep guessing….


3 on average

and this is because I didn’t wanted to get into breeding.
that tank also had other tanganikan fish too most of them were producing fry all year The survivor rate was even worse without intervention.

yes people get into breeding can make way better survival rate but that is not the average Joe like me who don’t want the hassle. We who thinks this way will ruin your statistics.

who doesn’t like baby fish? I will try once too to save the clowns fry to be eaten just for the experience but no way am I planning to be the guy producing baby fish in mass and as fare as I know the survival rate will be 0 in that case just like in most of our tanks.

My point is just because you do everything right the average survival rate in a tank is fare from ideal.

were the fish happy? Hell yes they could have fun without the consequences.

 

[gstaiano95]

Are fish truly happy in captivity?

Here’s my take. All the fish we are able to keep are prey that’s the bottom line. In the wild they spend their lives scared, and constantly having to run away. In captivity the only downside is the confines from which they live. In all, with an adequate tank size, water chemistry, and diet I do not find that they’re unhappy in captivity. In addition, you know when your fish is unhappy by its behavior I.e. darting back and forth and such. In contrast, I do strongly recommend buying captive-bred fish whenever possible. Captive bred fish only know the captive world. I believe it matters even less for them.

 

[VR28man]

I'll hit a few points from the first page.

But first, I'm generally in the "fish (mostly) don't have the cognitive ability to be happy",etc. camp. We have an obligation to treat them very well because we've chosen to keep them. At the same time, most of us (unless we were raised 100% vegetarian) have done worse things to probably hundreds of fish before, albeit we've paid fishermen and butchers to do it on our behalf.

My dad had a good point on it though. If people don't see and experience animals for themselves in person, they will never care about them when they are thousands of miles away.

I think this is true. But at the same time, from a pure philosophy standpoint I do also feel it might be a bit of a utilitarian justification.

Other fish have large behavior changes notably many fish that school in wild like Bangaiis and Chromis have a tendacy to murder each other in a tank. Is this because they recognize the absence of predators? Or just part of maybe the stress of captivity?

Lets look at Bangais in the wild they live in large groups, but in most scenarios in captivity that I've read they will eventually narrow down to two. Sure dispersed aggression might play a role, but I've read about large groups in very large tanks still killing each other off. Is this because they somehow recognize the absence of predators? Or is it some other stress of captivity we can't identify. If a schooling fish can recognize they are safe from predators than on some level they recognize they live in a box ;Writing

Banggais, chromis, and many other fish (maybe even most small fish) shoal when they are young, and as they get older they pair off and kill their competitors. Especially in the absent of predation. So it isn't terribly surprising they get along OK at first but gradually kill each other off after a period of time, IMO.

But this depends on both the species and the individual.

 

[StewL6]

Funny was thinking about this today in looking at my 22 gallon nano. Almost a year old (Dec 5). The fish have had a very stable population and stable water parameters for last 4 to 5 months. In looking at the tank today you can almost feel that they are happy in the way they are acting and interacting with each other and the tank. They play. Very little aggression. My blue sided wrasse is just starting to get too big for the tank. Need to move him to the 110 gallon in couple weeks. (That should be fun)

 

[Grumblez]

Banggais, chromis, and many other fish (maybe even most small fish) shoal when they are young, and as they get older they pair off and kill their competitors. Especially in the absent of predation. So it isn't terribly surprising they get along OK at first but gradually kill each other off after a period of time, IMO.

But this depends on both the species and the individual

I've never seen a video of just 2 Banggai in the wild, its always a bunch huddled around anemones or urchins

 

[2_much_junk_in_the_sump]

All of my fish have personalities to some degree. My tank is right next to where I work and my flame hawkfish will swim around and around in loops super fast on the side by me when he is hungry or wants attention. My clownfish are basically gluttons and only really care about food, but they aggressively smack their tales at anything that goes near their spawning area. My tang is a bully and will go out of his way to be mean to the other fish at times, but he likes to poop in the same spot where he doesn't really fit, so he has to literally back into the spot like a car trying to back into a parking spot and it's hilarious. Even my turbo snails have personality. They are trained to come up to the top of the tank and will take nori out of my hand. I don't think I can go without a reef tank ever again. I love everything about it.

 

[airedwin]

I don't know if fish are capable of emotions. The better question to me is; can fish be optimally healthy in captivity? and the answer is sort of yes in my opinion.

 

[blaxsun]

 

[KrisReef]

Are fish truly happy in captivity?

I think that fish living in the wild dream of being scooped up in a net, flown across the planet and released into a safe environment where the food is always plentiful and people sit and admire them and nothing hunts, kills, and eats them.