Thought you were overstocked? Check out this guy.

[Jager]

while i certainly respect opinions here, and i happen to agree with statements that some people will see this an go oh well if he can do it so can any idiot, but you all have to stop and consider certain things, some of which i seriously doubt any wamas member not on the WWM crew knows.

 

sure the tank is overcrowded, but again any person who has kept a cichlid tank knows the same rules apply. and while some condemn that technique, the fish certainly thrive.

 

travis is on the WWm crew, the editors of CMA are also a part of the group. Bob Fenner as controller and owner of the whole thing does not allow bad information to go out. unorthodox yes, bad? no. whether we disagree or say that is overkill or not how we would do it is ok that is an opinion and we all have one. but without taking the merits of the article for what they are is ridiculous and a disservice to the hobby overall.

 

obviously he has money, he also has a very high payign job in the US governments control over the internet. so a big system and expensive angels are not a hindrance. he also has the money to preform a 1/5 water change of the system WEEKLY. 100 gallons is alot of water folks, if it is happening as the article says and they are as healthy as they appear in the photos, then we dont really have any room to comment on his husbandry techniques. we can comment upon our thoughts, but condemning his setup without having done near what he is attempting is rediculous.

 

copps could speak on this and i would see no issue, because copps keeps alot of angels.

 

I can feel comfortable speaking on this because I have puffers in a reef tank with angels and clams, so i know a bit about diffusing aggression and large biolaods.

 

not saying no ones allowed to voice their opinion, but i remember quite a few stocking lists on this board with alot of fish that "should not" be in the same tank due to eventual size or aggression and no one uttered a peep.

 

and then theres the well its ok i have a huge skimmer to cover the fish load stocking lists comments as well that were simply not questioned either.

 

I think if thats how you keep YOUR tank that is fine. I may not agree with what you are doing, but if your fish are thriving then it works and any potential issues i may have ill discuss, but im certainly not in any position to tell you your wrong.

 

hes had the fish 8 months, that may not be long in the grand scheme but even the most diehard aquarist knows that fish dont succumb to disease and illness due to outright stress from initial addition or die of starvation after 6-8 months. they thrive or they are dead long before.

 

if he does not move to a 4k tank, and some fish die sure we can all throw a fit and i would not bat an eye, i dont expect that anyone here would hold their tongue if they knew my stocking list either, but mine works fine until i upgrade again when the fish get a bit bigger, and they are fat healthy and eating.

 

 

so i applaud the guy for trying something, having the money to do it right, and being prepared to cover most emergencies, and having a store there like we have BRK here to help him out. would i have 66 fish in a 250, no, but it works for him, and if hes happy and the fish are healthy then i see no problem with it.

Edited May 31, 2007 by Jager

[fab]

Have any of you ever dived inside a bait ball? ... or in the middle of a packed school of fuseliers where these 12-15" long fish are about an inch apart side to side and head to tail? ... or a dense pack of sentinel barracuda? or a school of thousands of glass fish in the confines of a very small cave? or similarly dense packings of any of a number of other types of fish, extremely dense packings, at least if not more dense than his handful of fish in his tank?

 

I can tell you from first hand experience that such packing densities are not uncommon in nature. I've seen this in two oceans and in at least 3 seas. I've seen it in nature where thousands of fish are involved. I've seen cases where many, many more fish than are in his fish list crowd themselves into spaces smaller than my own display tank, sometimes in open water, sometimes in a confined space.

 

Also, in nature, I've never seen an angel fish pick on another angel fish or butterflys pick on other butterflys. I've seen that a lot in hobbyist tanks. What do we conclude from this? Is Angel on Angel an artifact of the hobby?

 

On the other hand, I have seen damsel fish pick on almost any other fish, large or small that comes by. In fact I've seen them pick on divers very aggressively. How many of you avoid keeping damsel fish in your tanks with other fish that they pick on in nature? Have we evolved to where we think that our tanks really emulate nature, when they don't, even in this issue of density of fish being crammed together?

 

fab

Edited June 2, 2007 by fab

[treesprite]

Well, if we really aimed to "emulate nature" then we wouldn't have any fish other than small bottom or cave-dwelling fish and then only 1 or so per 100 gallon tank. The simply fact of the matter is that you can't emulate nature and still have a SW tank. The closest we can come to that is to simulate, to the best of our ability, those conditions we can control.

 

i meant in terms of being able to maintain as close to it as possible and still have a very nice aquarium in which the animals' needs are respected and met. If a fish gets stressed at a space of less than 100 gal per specimen but stays happy and healthy above 100, then it stands to reason that its against nature to make the fish live in a space smaller than 100 gal

[Guest Larry-T]

i meant in terms of being able to maintain as close to it as possible and still have a very nice aquarium in which the animals' needs are respected and met. If a fish gets stressed at a space of less than 100 gal per specimen but stays happy and healthy above 100, then it stands to reason that its against nature to make the fish live in a space smaller than 100 gal

 

Animal behavior does not work in a linear fashion. It may very well be that a fish feels increasing stress when allowed less and less space (although where you cross the line into "unhealthy stress" is a difficult call) and then they reach a "tipping piont" where their stress level goes way down and their territorial urges simply collapse.

 

The only way to tell if a fish is under unhealthy levels of stress is to look for the common signs, such as lack of appetite, loss of immune response and subsequent infection by ich and other diseases, etc... If the fish a eating, growing, and otherwise healthy, the stress levels are not too high.

 

By its nature, an aquarium is a completely unnatural situation for a fish. They either adapt or stress out and die. While the aquarium under discussion is not one I would maintain even with an unlimited budget, I don't condemn him for it as long as he can maintain the fish in a manner where they do not seem to be under unhealthy levels of stress.

[Sharkb8]

Well, we're all free to have an opinion and I suppose the reason for posting this article was to trigger discussion and see what people thought. My thoughts on this vary widely. Some points I came up with:

 

1. Some have said, well, maybe its ok if its only temporary. I agree. But don't you also agree that ALL of our tanks are temporary? I mean, we all have various combinations of species, none of which will be "the same" or unchanging for the next 25+ years (this includes fish as well as non-fish). You will always have to change your tank up, move this out, make more room for that, take this fish out when it gets too big, etc. No tank I've ever seen is permanent.

 

2. Some have said it does no mimick real life (nature). Another replied that in fact, none of our tanks mimick real life or nature. I agree with both statements. We cannot even come close to that. Consider tangs, for instance, as another person commented upon - tangs love to swim, to graze, they are constantly in motion, and often found in flocks (I think - not sure on that). So none of them could possibly be happy in even a 250 gallon tank. They need acres, not mere gallons. The reef display at the Atlanta Aquarium comes close to mimicking nature, I think. But even that seems overcrowded to me.

 

3. I say leave it to the experts. In this field, in my opinion, the experts are those with doctorates in marine biology and marine science - those who study at the premier public (and some private) marine institutions and who help run the public aquariums in our nation. Do you see a display like this at any of those places? Nope. In my mind, that's the answer to the question. Its not based on "rule of thumb" amateur hobbiest guesswork. Its left to science and our present day best understanding of each species. The article itself states that angels are solitary fish. This is likely based on our present scientific understanding of that species. What this tank does is ignore all that. The owner thinks they are apparently smarter than all the other experts or just plain doesn't care.

 

4. If the owner is ignoring all scientific understanding of these species, then call Animal Welfare. That's my opinion. Its no different than the folks who like to keep 300 cats in their 1 bedroom house. Simple common sense says its not healthy, and science, in this case anyway, backs that up.

 

5. A last point - this tank I think amplifies all that is wrong with my aquarium keeping hobby. I often debate with myself which species I should keep in my tank - which would suffer least. I have a 90g with two tangs that should NOT be in there, except that they came with the tank when I bought it. Sure, they are pretty, but I can tell the tank is too small for them. They need more swimming room. Then I look at the other fish in the tank and can pretty much come to the same conclusion about all of them. So why even bother keeping them when its just causing shortened life spans and unhealthy environments. Am I in fact simply torturing these organisms? There are other pets that are even more stunted in their ability to roam (birds, snakes, dogs, etc etc etc). So I often wonder if I should just ditch this whole hobby because of what I may be doing to my livestock. Why support an industry bent on torturing animals by keeping them locked up in small cages that are miniscule fractions of their natural habitat? That's the reaction I get from looking at this tank.

[fab]

Consider tangs, for instance, as another person commented upon - tangs ... [are] often found in flocks.

I've never seen tangs school in nature, or swim in flocks. But then I haven't see all tangs either, or all of nature. But I have seen a lot of tangs in a lot of different places at a lot of different times of year.

 

fab

Edited June 4, 2007 by fab

[Sharkb8]

I've never seen tangs school in nature, or swim in flocks. But then I haven't see all tangs either, or all of nature. But I have seen a lot of tangs in a lot of different places at a lot of different times of year.

 

fab

 

{Edit: I've been given permission to retract my retraction}

 

Edited June 5, 2007 by Biodork

[mogurnda]

I've never seen tangs school in nature, or swim in flocks. But then I haven't see all tangs either, or all of nature. But I have seen a lot of tangs in a lot of different places at a lot of different times of year.

 

fab

This is a fairly common sight in the Caribbean. We call it "tang parade." They swarm over the reef, usually with the odd parrotfish and trumpetfish in tow.

[fab]

Looks like Biodork can retract his retraction.

 

I've never dived in the Carribean and I've never seen a "Tang Parade." I guess I should finally make it around to the Carribean and see this first hand.

 

BTW, notice the packing density of these tangs. It is pretty high, even though there is a lot of open water around them. I've seen even tighter packing than this many times. Of course these fish can disperse whenever they want to.

 

fab

Edited June 5, 2007 by fab

[Jimmy]

You really believe that the ratio of fish/water ever reaches anything close to this in the wild? Even if fish are packed in a small area on the reef, it is an open system with masses of water flowing through it constantly. Way different from a 250 gallon closed system.

 

I agree, I doubt you'd see that many species of angels in that small of a space in the wild. But then again, can a fish be clostrophobic?

 

Also, I can only imagine what the tank looks like at feeding time.