The xmas gift that keeps on giving.

Topic for the day: Tankbusters

Been touched on in the past, thought a new thread to raise awareness this time of the year is maybe not the worst idea.

I like http://injaf.org/ they get to the point ... don't do it

You can head over and go and view these infographs

http://injaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Kings-of-the-Tankbusters.jpg


and

http://injaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Goldfish-PFK_JULY13_Big-Mistakes-Goldie-infographic.jpg


Always a good idea to check what size that fish will get to before you put it in your xmas stocking.



http://injaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Expected-sizes-of-popular-ornamental-fish-species-cm.pdf

Safe shopping.

Later Ferdie

 

Thanks for the good post!

Oscar sizes rarely exceed 30-35cm. There was massive debate elsewhere and the largest known specimen in the trade was 42cm. But massive still! The amount of ID sharks, (illegal) peackock bass, bala sharks, Oscars, large cichlids in general, clown knives and red tail cats in the country is far too high. Not many can cater to them, but still get them

 

Going to have to disagree on this one. As the guy who used to have to deal with the 'monster' trade-ins at a pet store, I fairly regularly saw Oscars of this size. Sometimes we even saw suppliers offering ''30cm'' Oscars, although I can't confirm the size of these since we never ordered them. Either way, not uncommon at all, but maybe it's just the Durban weather?

I think it might be more correct to say that many monster fish don't get to their ''expected'' sizes - aquarium or wild maximums - because they are not afforded the correct basic care, leading to a shortened lifespan. This of course includes tank size.

These are great infographics, though. I thought they were out of a magazine.

Regards,

 

Now that is 2 posters I would like to see in all lfs

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Yeah image how many more people would be successful in the hobby if they got the right advice at the counter.

Later Ferdie

 

I've seen these dotted around

@SalmonAfrica again it varies, some people can't get theirs past 30 and sometimes there's monsters in small tanks. Fish are strange

 

The most common tank busters you’ll find in virtually every lfs are:
Oscars
Bala sharks
Pangasius
Clown knife fish
Sailfin pleco (gibbiceps)
Tinfoil barbs
Red parrots
Less common but still reasonably widely available:
Giant gourami
Silver arowana
Redtail cats
Shovel nose cats
The magazine that published these (top two) poster was Practical Fish Keeping in the UK. It was part of a campaign where pet stores/lfs did not stock these fish and made customers aware of the potential size of these fish, hence their reason for not selling them.

 

Good info, thanks JwH .. seems like the UK has really tried hard to change both the customer and retailers attitude towards these type of fish. http://www.bigfishcampaign.org/ would be a good example with these type of campaigns https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co...t-the-big-fish-campaign?rq=big fish campaign I wonder what the success rate was / is.

Anybody have a subscription to https://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/practical-fishkeeping-magazine did they ever publish the success of the campaign as a follow-up?

Later Ferdie

BTW I would have preferred to have the images load from the source link on injaf but with the new way that TASA treats images I have not found a way to do so hence the source url's to the images. If any of the mods feel that the images are not fair use or might be at risk of copyrighted information please remove the images and only leave the link to them.

 

PFK is cool, I'm subscribed to Amazonas which deals mostly with smaller fish. Unfortunately the tankbusters are the ones that sell and money is business...

 

Yeah been doing more digging and just not able to find any sort of success feedback. Suppose education is only realized long term not by short term gains.

Later Ferdie

 

I subscribe to PFK as well, and I remember a couple of follow ups on the big fish campaign few years back, from memory there was some success, but I can't remember the exact detail.
Unfortunately the awareness created by sites such as this will be limited to enthusiast who are mostly aware of tank busters. Pangasius, clown knives, Oscars etc seem to become more and more available than ever before. Mostly they are tiny, couple of cm at most.
Until we see a drop in demand from big markets such as US & EU, they will continue to be bred in Asia. Tattooed fish have become a no-no in those markets and I hardly ever see them in SA anymore, anyone else notice this?

 

That's true. Amazonas isn't as consumer driven, especially since many of the fish aren't easy to find.

That's very true, a kid here bought a clown knife with 10 guppies which were placed in the same bag. You can see how that turned out, he stopped at the next LFS and dumped it there after it swallowed R100! Why are Smaller knives like Xenomystus or some Gymnotus so hard to find!

 

@Jwh you're right about the modified fish, as although they're still available, they're much rarer than they used to be. I do feel, in part, it may be due to the massive death rates associated with these fish. Many pet store owners weren't keen on that aspect.

@Hendre unfortunately it comes down to "what is looks good" or "what seems cool", and rarely "what is practical". And as long as people create demand, there is profit to be made and many businesses will keep up the practice.

 

All lfs are profit driven. They will keep any fish as long as it sells. I will go as far as saying that 90% of all fish bought due too their cute factor and not due to what will work in my tank. Most of the time the lfs emplyee will not tell them the actual adult size, as they rarerly know, or he/she is losing out on comission.

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I reckon it should be a legal requirement to have "info charts" on every tank. pH, temperature, adult size, etc. Just the top 4-5 things you need to know.

I've seen 1 or 2 LFS do this but if they all did it, then responsible n00bs (like me) will make better choices.

But you still get completely irresponsible people who just don't care. Ja I dunno what can be done there.

 

Agree, unlikely to happen, I was just at a lfs, 25-30% of their tanks were stocked with “tank busters” and this the largest (by number of tanks) store in this area, the potential loss of income would probably make it difficult to survive
Fish stores should make profit and thrive, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be around, and we wouldn’t be having these conversations,

 

I agree with all that has been said but sadly.. i would also like to add that, its not always the LFS'S fault for not telling people the final size of a tank buster.....
I know dozens of people if not more that are very knowledgeable on these fish's requirements and some that have been fully enlightened to the same and yet they still go ahead and buy tank buster for their 5 foot tank
When you ask them why.. why are you doing that if you know you cant house it.. the answer is.. i will sell it when it gets too big

And thats how it goes on...
Some people dont look at a fish as a pet to be housed and kept for life, they change and swop fish every couple of months when they either get tiered of them or they get too big for the tank
So its not just the LFS's fault, its also people and how seriously they take fishkeeping

 

Yeah like having kids, in an ideal world once should have passed a competency certification before embarking on get a fish tank