Driving in to work this morning, with a half a pot of strong coffee boiling through my veins, I got to pondering â€"œ when you hear somebody say, “you need to do X,Y,Z in order to keep your fish happy†or “your fish cannot be happy in that size tank†what do they really mean? Are they using the word “happy†in place of “healthy†or “proper well-beingâ€Â? Or do they really mean to imply that true happiness can be identified and then quantified in fish?
I may use that term myself â€"œ “Man, that fish sure is unhappy.†to identify a fish being bullied by a tankmate. What I really mean is “That fish has an ongoing territorial conflict with a tankmate, it is exhibitng a depressed demeanor and its well-being is compromised. If something isn’t done to change the situation, that fish’s health will be affected, eventually to the point of morbidity followed by mortalityâ€Â. It is just faster (but far less precise) to use the word “unhappyâ€Â.
On the other hand, an animal rights advocate may look at a single fish in a tank and exclaim, “how unhappy that fish must be, all alone in that small tankâ€Â. I suspect that in these cases, they mean not the fish’s well-being and health, but that it is truly unhappy in the mammal paradigm of how the word is generally used in English.
Now don't get me wrong, I don’t have a problem that some people do with semantics â€"œ as long as their intent is clear. If somebody asks me how to keep a school of chromis, I know what they mean, and I don’t immediately go into a long discussion on how aquarium fish don’t actually form schools, they form shoals. Same thing could be the case with “happinessâ€Â, I'm content to let the term ride unless I think the people really mean "smiley face" happy as in "the opposite of sad" when talking about fish.
However, if for example, one of the “tang police†say, “hepatus tangs need at least a 150 gallon tank in order to be happy†they are not using the word in place of “healthy†if that same tang can be kept healthy and problem free, long term, in a 75 gallon tank. They are then adding an extra layer to the definition, one that cannot be measured or quantified. I do have a problem with that, it is misleading or ambiguous at best.
I’m not condoning keeping fish in small aquariums, I’m just opining that you cannot formulate tank size requirements based on intangibles such as the “happiness†of a fish. If your opinion is that this example fish is so much happier in the 150 gallon than the 75 gallon, that the smaller tank becomes a non-starter, then the fish would be whole orders of magnitude "happier" in the wild, and shouldn’t be kept in an aquarium at all.
Since 1985, I have been collecting fish respiration rate data as a means to try and identify stress in captive fishes. Certainly, I discovered that stressed fish respire at a higher rate (with temperature, species, size all being factored in). I then collected baseline data from wild fishes in the Bahamas and the Galapagos. My hypothesis was that fish from the wild would respire at the best, most stress-free rate. Funny thing â€"œ most of those fishes respired faster than captive fish. It turns out that swimming against currents and waves, sculling around looking for food and outswimming predators were all combining to cause these fish to be MORE stressed than captive fish by this measure. Are they less happy then?
So here is my working definition of “appropriate aquarium husbandryâ€Â, and I say this equates to "happy" for a captive fish:
If the fish shows no signs of chronic disease or abnormality, exhibits normal feeding and reproductive behaviors and most importantly, exhibits a normal lifespan compared to that of wild counterparts (minus the predation wild fish incur of course!), then there is no other metric we can use to determine if a certain suite of husbandry techniques are suitable or not.
So what do you think, â€"œ do fish exhibit happiness or is it just an overall feeling of well-being? (grin)
Jay
I may use that term myself â€"œ “Man, that fish sure is unhappy.†to identify a fish being bullied by a tankmate. What I really mean is “That fish has an ongoing territorial conflict with a tankmate, it is exhibitng a depressed demeanor and its well-being is compromised. If something isn’t done to change the situation, that fish’s health will be affected, eventually to the point of morbidity followed by mortalityâ€Â. It is just faster (but far less precise) to use the word “unhappyâ€Â.
On the other hand, an animal rights advocate may look at a single fish in a tank and exclaim, “how unhappy that fish must be, all alone in that small tankâ€Â. I suspect that in these cases, they mean not the fish’s well-being and health, but that it is truly unhappy in the mammal paradigm of how the word is generally used in English.
Now don't get me wrong, I don’t have a problem that some people do with semantics â€"œ as long as their intent is clear. If somebody asks me how to keep a school of chromis, I know what they mean, and I don’t immediately go into a long discussion on how aquarium fish don’t actually form schools, they form shoals. Same thing could be the case with “happinessâ€Â, I'm content to let the term ride unless I think the people really mean "smiley face" happy as in "the opposite of sad" when talking about fish.
However, if for example, one of the “tang police†say, “hepatus tangs need at least a 150 gallon tank in order to be happy†they are not using the word in place of “healthy†if that same tang can be kept healthy and problem free, long term, in a 75 gallon tank. They are then adding an extra layer to the definition, one that cannot be measured or quantified. I do have a problem with that, it is misleading or ambiguous at best.
I’m not condoning keeping fish in small aquariums, I’m just opining that you cannot formulate tank size requirements based on intangibles such as the “happiness†of a fish. If your opinion is that this example fish is so much happier in the 150 gallon than the 75 gallon, that the smaller tank becomes a non-starter, then the fish would be whole orders of magnitude "happier" in the wild, and shouldn’t be kept in an aquarium at all.
Since 1985, I have been collecting fish respiration rate data as a means to try and identify stress in captive fishes. Certainly, I discovered that stressed fish respire at a higher rate (with temperature, species, size all being factored in). I then collected baseline data from wild fishes in the Bahamas and the Galapagos. My hypothesis was that fish from the wild would respire at the best, most stress-free rate. Funny thing â€"œ most of those fishes respired faster than captive fish. It turns out that swimming against currents and waves, sculling around looking for food and outswimming predators were all combining to cause these fish to be MORE stressed than captive fish by this measure. Are they less happy then?
So here is my working definition of “appropriate aquarium husbandryâ€Â, and I say this equates to "happy" for a captive fish:
If the fish shows no signs of chronic disease or abnormality, exhibits normal feeding and reproductive behaviors and most importantly, exhibits a normal lifespan compared to that of wild counterparts (minus the predation wild fish incur of course!), then there is no other metric we can use to determine if a certain suite of husbandry techniques are suitable or not.
So what do you think, â€"œ do fish exhibit happiness or is it just an overall feeling of well-being? (grin)
Jay
