The correctness of keeping fish

I know this might sound a bit strange but what is peoples stance on how they think fish feel about living their entire lives in a aquarium ?
Would anyone keep a dog/cat locked in a small room for its entire life ?
It spurns from the wild caught fish argument.
I have a female congo tetra who is about 7 years old, would she have lived that long in the wild ?

In my past life as a fish keeper I always changed the tank layout every few months. A rock here, a plant there.
The fish seemed to love exploring the new stuff.
Also I was home in my mams over the weekend and I went out the back garden (tip) and knew what I was looking for, I was drawn to a spot and cleared some weeds and there was one of the very stones I had in a tank over 10 years ago.
Wicklow mountain red granite type rock.
Beautiful!!!
I'm off to clean it up and put it in my new tank!

Hi Damian,
fish don't care. In nature many species are living in a very restricted body of water anyway. Just look at killifish, they are found in mere puddles. Secondly, I doubt that fish have the cranial capacity to care about these things. It's not like they hire interior designers

Hi Damian,
fish don't care. In nature many species are living in a very restricted body of water anyway. Just look at killifish, they are found in mere puddles. Secondly, I doubt that fish have the cranial capacity to care about these things. It's not like they hire interior designers

I disagree.
Fish seem to look happier, whether thats by displaying more vibrant colours or simply by swimming around with their fins fully displayed.
A randomly changing environment keeps them 'on their toes' as it were.

I'm not saying they care, but they seem to prosper better, in my experience.

This debate is best left to the experts.If you want to keep up to date with cranial complexity of fish (African Cichlids) have a look at this link

people.bu.edu/cshumway/Brain%20Structure.htm

www.bu.edu/biology/Faculty_Staff/shumway.html

there are two reasons why they would display more vibrant colour. Both of them quite unrelated.
-If you move your decorations do you also clean your tank? A big waterchange can make all the difference.
-Colours might seem more vibrant because the fish have to re-establish their respective terretories. This can potentially cause stress.

Any discus breeder will tell you that the less the fish are disturbed by moving stuff around in the tank the better. Peace and quiet is what they are after not constantly adjusting to the environment. The same is true for most fish. When breeding apistogramma dwarf cichlids you never change an established tank if you can avoid it.

Apisto,you are using a bad example,even though you are right in a way.Kilifish dont have to adjust to a massive change in habitat when kept in captivity.Cichlids like Tropheus which have to keep constantly on the move because they eat algae that grows on rocks (ie it doesnt grow back quickly enough to stay in the one spot).This means they dont keep territories and always come across new rock formations.
What Didinho said is spot on in regard more complex fish.However I dont like to see Wild Caught fish being kept in small tanks,no matter how many times you change rock formations that is cruel.At least captive bred are used to it from the start|!!

Apisto,you are spot on in regard to Discus,I suppose this debate is too widespread to say one is right or wrong.Different cases for different fish!!

Apisto,you are spot on in regard to Discus,I suppose this debate is too widespread to say one is right or wrong.Different cases for different fish!!

I also suppose I should have quanified my opinion in that I have never kept any fish considered 'difficult'.
My opinions are based on the likes of Angels, Gouramis, Catfish.

Ok, to get rid of any misconceptions here. I'm not trying to be in any way snobbish about what fish you keep. Whatever you keep, if you like the fish, that's fair enough with me as long as the fish are suitable aquarium fish. I just happen to like Discus and Apistogramma and if you follow a few principles they are not that hard to keep.
Even small tetras and rasboras have small terretories which they like to defend. Of course they are not as territorial as cichlids.

I don't want to get too scientific about this but here are a few basic rules:
-whatever calories fish eat are divided into growth, movement and reproduction. This means the less the fish has to move the less energy is wasted on movement the more can be used on growth, which gives them a better chance to reproduce in the first place. And the more they reproduce the more offspring with their genes is likely to develop. This is what biologist define as biologically successful.
Just look at a trout feeding in a stream. If a fly drifts straight over it's nose it is likely to rise and eat it. Flies floating down either side tend to be ignored because the fish would use more energy to get at the foodsource than it would gain by eating it. Of course this is not a logical decision but genetically programmed.

-the more a fish moves the more likely it is to be eaten by a predator since movement attracts them, so while the Tropheus in the earlier example have to move around to find food they would stay put if they found enough food in the same spot. I used to breed wild Tropheus back in the 80's and they never had a problem with their surroundings. They bred like rabbits.

Fishes' brains are simply not evolved enough to get bored.