fishqueer

[fishqueer]

And honestly sometimes pet stores have multiple sources for their animals, and some of them will be decent or reputable, and some of them won't, and if they don't know the difference, then they probably don't care about where they get them. Slowly things are improving, and some stores that have poorly sourced animals are genuinely looking for reputable breeders, but especially for some popular animals, one or two independent breeders just do not will not cannot produce enough animals to meet "demand". Capitalism mandates that even in the most ideal situation, consumers either do the investigative work themselves, or accept some modicum of exploitation-- in this case live animals. And those stores "need to make a profit". Whether you excuse some amount of that as choice or forced violence under capitalism is up to you, but asking where the animals come from and learning to identify healthy animals are great first steps to supporting a more ethical pet trade.

It is really important to remember that buying a pet from a pet store is NOT rescuing it; it’s purchasing. You’re putting money into the pockets of the shady breeders and pet stores that give them business. You’re opening space for another animal. You’re creating more demand, which creates more supply and leads to more shady breeding. Pet stores don’t care what your motives are. If you bought the animal, that’s money in their pocket. I know it’s hard, but don’t buy the sick reptile. A market for “rescuing” sick reptiles from pet stores is still a market for buying more sick reptiles from mill breeders.

[fishqueer]

I like

[fishqueer]

i love my panda garras just as much as they love eating my dead skin cells

[fishqueer]

Oh the mustard is next to the axolotl, above the tortoise. Yeah just- no it's fine just scoot him a little

he was in the fridge!!!

[fishqueer]

I wanna know everything about the plants! It looks like you've got pulsing xenia, so these aren't freshwater pipefish for sure. I haven't seen saltwater plants in a nano aside from macroalgae.

Playing around with the pipe fish pair in the macro tank 😃

[fishqueer]

what if we properly research our pets before we get them and we’re both gay 😳

[fishqueer]

Loaches are so good

They come in pasta

pancake

and empanada

[fishqueer]

comic

[fishqueer]

do fish feel pain?

Such a deceptively simple looking question has been hotly debated in science for decades now, with vocal advocates on both sides, but I’m pretty damn sure fish feel pain.

The crux of the ‘No’ argument is basically that while fish have nociceptors (neurons which detect pain) but they don’t connect to their neocortex like they do in mammals, so they conclude that while fish probably feel some kind of ‘fish pain’ it’s not equivalent to pain as we know it.

I, personally, am not terribly impressed by this argument. We used to say this about every non-human species on the planet and now we know better.

This article from the Smithsonian sums it up well. We do know quite a lot about how fish perceive their environment, including painful stimuli.

Stimuli that would cause pain in a human cause increased activity in the whole brain, not just the brain stem, which implies it is percieved consciously.

Fish behaviour changes when injected with something painful, but does not change if injected with both something painful and morphine. Morphine does not change the tissue damage, only how the conscious brain perceives pain.

Fish avoid painful stimuli.

So the evidence is mounting that yes, fish feel a type of pain and while it may not be 100% analogous to pain sensation in a mammal, that difference is likely academic. The fact that their behavior normalizes when given pain relief after a painful stimulus is pretty strong evidence in my professional opinion.

What we do know, without doubt, is that fish can suffer. The details of that pain don’t matter so much as their ability to suffer because of it. We can debate semantics and fine details all day, but if we have stewardship over these animals, it’s our duty to minimize their suffering wherever we reasonably can.

[fishqueer]

Give me that!

[fishqueer]

Absolutely beautiful illustrations of butterflyfishes in the genus Chaetodon by Scott Partridge. They are available to buy as an art print here.

[fishqueer]

ride em cowboy

[fishqueer]

What's the POINT if you don't fill your tanks to the very brim?

I DID IT AGAIN

ON THE SAME TANK

[fishqueer]

PLEASE look at my dumb pom pom crab, he lost his original poms and now carries around (1) baby mushroom coral and (1) comically large piece of pulsing xenia

[fishqueer]

And now we return to your regularity schedules yelling about gobies.

This time we are going to look at a bunch of Rhinogobius and Stiphodon spp.

This right here is the incomparable Scarlet or Zhou’s goby (Rhinogobius zhoui).

And the bodacious Red Spotted goby (Rhinogobius rubromaculatus).

And Rhinogobius formosanus, who looks like it has no business being off a reef.

And the very variable Gold Neon goby (Stiphodon percnopterygionus).

The Rainbow goby, which is also quite variable. (Stiphodon ornatus).

The sporty Blue Neon goby (Stiphodon atropurpureus).

The Orange Cling goby (Stiphodon rutilaureus), which a local fish store near me had in once and I died on the spot.

And last but not least, the breathtaking Stiphodon anniaeae.

That barely scratches the surface of freshwater (and estuarine) gobies, but I think I’m done for now. But heck gobies are just real neat.

[fishqueer]

Rhinopias eschmeyeri

(source)

[fishqueer]

fishkeeper feels

forgetting there is Always a little guy just in your room and then. remembering

y'all ever uhhh... baby talk to your fish a little bit? maybe quietly explain what you're doing as you clean the tank and move stuff around them like they actually care? yeah.

getting your first few pieces of equipment without knowing dick about shit and getting slowly more horrified at the amount of maintenance and money this is going to take

betta cups in Petco are shaped for hold...

telling dramatized aquarium stories to your non-fishkeeper friends to make what you did last night (clean the tank) sound exciting

why won't these fucking rocks stay in their fucking spot god fucking damnit i will eat you like cereal you stupid chunks of shit just stay where you're fuckin- YES. YES PERFECT.

are my

are my fish judging me?

is that a thing?

oh god

when you gotta siphon tank water with your mouth because you're too cheap for a gravel vacuum and at this point it doesn't even register how lowkey nasty that is anymore

looking at the thermometer real quick and then looking at the thermometer again just to check and then looking at the thermometer one more time just to make sure and looking at the-