anabantoid:

bettsplendens:

ultra-frog:

probablyafish:

eelpatrickharris:

fish that no hobbyist should own, period:

• arapaimas
• alligator gar (and most gars in general)
• redtail catfish
• peacock bass
• lungfish
• african tigerfish
• payara/vampire tetras
• sturgeon
• arowanas
• electric eels
• stingrays

unless you live in an area where one of those fish is native and you can build a suitable pond; or you own a tank that exceeds 10,000 gallons and have the abilities and funds to maintain it; you have no business owning anything on that list.

it’s not elitist. it’s not some PETA-approved tree hugger nonsense. it’s just common sense. fish like arowanas, peacock bass, sturgeon, and redtail cats? big, strong, active fish that need more than a swimming pool to be comfortable. payaras, gars, lungfish, electric eels, and african tigerfish are large and dangerous. stingrays are delicate fish that require an insane amount of space.

yes, there are some serious fishkeepers who can house fish that size, but they’re few and far between. a proper redtail catfish enclosure would cost you more than a high-end Mercedes just to set up. if you’re willing to dedicate that much time and money to a fish, then you’re not a plain hobbyist.

(also, the Monster Fish Keepers forum should be burned to the ground. thanks for coming to my ted talk.)

For more clarification, fish like the Alligator Gar that can grow to be twice as large as a 6 foot human in their natural habitat, and live for 25-50 years, (the red tailed catfish is to the right of the human)

and naturally live in places like this

should NOT be housed in pathetic tanks/pools like this

This is literally just cruel. There is no reason to keep a monster fish indoors or even in captivity at all. What benefit do you even get out of cramping a giant fish into a small container?

The fucking pet trade is a huge factor as too why half of these monster fish are critically endangered. 

There’s a store that has a fully grown red tail in a 55 gallon where they can’t turn around and it makes me feel so shitty

I agree with all of the above except the lungfish. Lungfish get big and need space, but they’re fairly lazy, they aren’t active swimmers. They can absolutely be housed indoors in a very large tank.

I disagree, mostly because “large tank” isn’t something people will get. What is a very large tank to you? A 210 is still only 6 feet long and will cost $400+. Custom tanks we’re talking about $1000+. The one person who can take care of a lungfish in humane and ethical manner is an atypical anomaly that isn’t counted when the trend of housing lungfish is something like 120-210 gallon tank. An LFS by me had a lungfish in a 7 foot tank for over fifteen years. It died recently at only about 20 years old, swollen from dropsy . The lungfish at the Shedd, Granddad, was over 90 when he passed away.

This is what happens to a lungfish when placed in a “very large tank”, and this was at a pretty well regarded store. This is the fate of lungfish in private captivity. They will die young, they will suffer, and then you can go out and buy another one to do it again.

I had to look something up, I thought I’d read about a species of lungfish that only gets to about 2 feet long and stays fairly skinny. That’s something a dedicated private aquarist could keep. Evidently that article was wrong, maybe they got mixed up with bichirs. 

Yeah, a four-foot-plus fish is not an aquarium fish. 

Pretty much all the fish on that list should be illegal to keep unless you’re an educational facility/public facility/etc, and should probably be illegal to import. Zoos can and should keep them to display to the public, the average person (and even the non-average person) doesn’t need a fish that weighs half as much as them. Maybe if they modify a swimming pool.