hitin golden balloon rams.

hey guys so was browsing a petstore at one of the malls near me and came across these guys and wondered about the, i recognised them as rams but the ballon part threw me a wee bit. has anyone ever heard of these fish before?

 

ja see them now and then they look like small blood parrots

 

Yip I know them but do not like them at all. They get bred untill there spine is deformed to give this "balloon" look.

 

ja the normal ones are much better

 

thats them exactly oscar freak, i wondered if it was an intentionally inbred trait, like the balloon mollies. its really cruel to breed something like that into a fish. i loved the colours!!

 

its cruel and totally unneccessary

 

Saw them for the first time at N1 Value centres pet shop. Thanks Vis, I didn't know these were bred like that. Atleast now I know for next time. It's sad that people do this

 

It's hardly different to goldfish, such as the shorter bodied fantail ones. Nobody complains about those, and they have medical complications quite often as they get older.

 

Just another man-made hybrid to avoid!

 

Actually, Gert, they aren't hybrids. It's interesting to see that a lot of people assume because a fish is man-made, hybridisation has taken place, which isn't always the case.

In the case of balloon rams (as well as goldfish and balloon mollies), the fish are selectively bred for their certain traits. In one of the generations, the breeder will notice that perhaps some of the fish have a certain trait that he'd like to continue as a strain. He'll take these fish and breed them with each other (remember that they're still the same species) so that he can continue this feature into future generations.

With the balloon Rams, some particularly fat and short spined fish were chosen to be bred on such that the short bodied balloon form continues to pass on its genes. In any other case of breeding, such fish are culled for the deformity. It's sickening to think that 'balloon' fish look good enough to keep them as a novelty.

 

Yes you are correct! - I just could not think of the proper word! lol!
Let me rephrase: Just another man-made F_ _ K-Up, to avoid!
In this case, they must be fishbillies, like Hillbillies! Sic! Lol!

 

I think I'll start a sticky somewhere with the title 'Fish to Morally avoid, and then we can all place these 'abominations' into that and create a list of these fish?!

Regards
G!

 

Great Idea! Do include some Tank-busters too!
Gert

 

Maybe start another thread for 'small fish the LFS will sell you that Grow into TankBusters!' ??

Cheers
G!

 

I'm against this idea.

For starters, these fish aren't 'abominations'. Maybe that's just me being sentimental, but a fish is a fish, and a life is a life. They're alive now, and there is little we can do to change that. As such, I think it's cruel to put them on an avoidance list, as they'll sit and suffer in the stock tanks for far too long. True, I don't like the way they look, but shunning them, in my eyes, is unacceptable.

As for the tankbusters... I live for them. That's where a lot of my hobby lies. I'm all alright with a list of potentially large growing fish that need serious consideration and huge tanks before purchase, but to put them in a 'moral avoidance' list would kill me. It'd be a better idea to get people educated about the big fish instead of outright just avoiding them.

That was the purpose of my earlier thread on giant fish - to tell people that the fish are out there, and they're for specialists. Not that they should be avoided.

 

I thought those were natural. Well I won't be buying them anymore!

I geuss everyone makes mistakes.:wondering: