A question of ethics

[tmmycat]

What do you think? Is it inhumane to leave guppies in the same tank with their young, knowing that the parents are going to eat all or most of their babies?

Humans wouldn't eat their kids (at least not anyone I know, thankfully) ... it's 110% immoral without a doubt ...

But tonight I started thinking ... why should human ethics apply to other species? Humans certainly aren't the gold standard in morality...

(ok ... I'm just waiting for my tank to cycle and I have plenty of time for pondering ... just interested to know what you think :-)

[A340]

In one way I would agree with you, we as humans interfere too much as is with animals and the way they live.

But, in regards to the guppies, I think that having the fish in a small, enclosed aquariums is quite different in the first place, thus not giving the fry the same survival rate (from being eaten) as they would in the wild.

[Nick_Pavlovski]

Is there anything preventing you from relocating them?

To some degree, I guess it's an issue for a "conscience-vote".

[Rue]

...I don't have an issue with fry being eaten...you can't keep them all, and fry being eaten is definately 'natural'...aquarium or not...

...what I do have an issue with is unregulated breeding...if you want guppies and don't want babies...have males (or females) only...

...and this goes for any livebearer or sexually dimorphic species...

[cocoa_pleco]

its not too big of a bad thing. It's the circle of life.

I kinda disliked giving my clown knife white clouds. the ones as pets in the planted tank are having the life, and the ones that i buy as feeders get killed. I kinda have a issue with that, but fry are not too big of a deal

[tmmycat]

Nick, to answer your question, I don't have any guppies at the moment ... I was just thinking hypothetically...

all very interesting responses ... actually think I tend to agree that the small space and the unregulated breeding are what makes it inhumane, not necessarily the eating.

But then I start wondering ... somehow the unregulated breeding of guppies seems less "OK" than unregulated breeding of bacteria and algae ... I wonder why that is? I wonder what "algorithm" we are using to decide what's OK and what's not. (I'm definitely not disagreeing with you ... just wondering why I agree. :-)

[Lady Hobbs]

I think it's more unethical to have hundreds and hundreds of baby fish in crowded conditions because you have no room for them all.

[Sasquatch]

Nick, to answer your question, I don't have any guppies at the moment ... I was just thinking hypothetically...

all very interesting responses ... actually think I tend to agree that the small space and the unregulated breeding are what makes it inhumane, not necessarily the eating.

But then I start wondering ... somehow the unregulated breeding of guppies seems less "OK" than unregulated breeding of bacteria and algae ... I wonder why that is? I wonder what "algorithm" we are using to decide what's OK and what's not. (I'm definitely not disagreeing with you ... just wondering why I agree. :-)

Define unregulated first.

The reproduction of bacteria in you aquarium is regulated, otherwise you'd have nothing but bacteria. So there is something regulating them. Nutrient levels, available space, competition with other species, grazing (by fish or snails).

As for your guppies, it's regulated too. Your fish don't just pump out babies constantly. There is the gestation time, the quality and quantity of the food you're giving them, the number of females and wether or not there are males.

Guppies eating baby guppies is a form of regulation. If there isn't enough place for the babies to hide and grow, the parents make sure that they don't have the chance to breed themselves and overload the aquarium.

As to your ethical questions about why certain things are more Ok than other, it's (IMO) directly related to how easy it is to anthropomorphise what your looking at. It's next to imposible to make an emphatic connection with bacteria, with guppies it's a little easier and with mice it's even easier. Most people "feel" worse the though of mice eating their own babies than guppies.

In any case, you don't want your tank with guppies getting overloaded, and with guppies (and other livebearers), this can happen fast. To prevent it either buy only one sex or find a way to remove the babies. One option is transfering pregnant mothers to another aquarium and raising the babies in another, though arguable this just transfers the problem and leaves you with the dilemna, what to do with the babies.

The other option is to buy another fish that will eat the babies the parents don't catch. That's what we did, we bought a small catfish. We've had two breeding females pumping out babies for over 5 months now, and we've almost never seen babies, and never for very long.

I basically comes down to what's better in the long run. Having a full stocked tank of guppies is great, but it'll turn into a cesspool if it get's overstocked and you're fish will die from slow poisoning from their own wastes. Better to get rid of the babies somehow that have that happen to your fish.

[SkarloeysMom]

OK, here's another thought about this. Which is more inhumane...to have male and female guppies together that occasionally produce fry that get eaten or to have all males that don't ever have a chance to breed which seems to be what they live for?

In my 10g community, I have one male guppy and only 2 females now (2 others have died so far). All the females where pg when I got them and it looks like all but 1 has had fry and I've never seen a single fry. I assume they have all been eaten. I isolated the last female who looked ready to pop in a 1 g tank but ended up moving her back before leaving on a trip. She was dead when I got back a few days later. I think moving must have stressed her out.

I've never had guppies before and truthfully I don't think I'll get anymore. I don't like thinking about the fry, they are food piggies and poop a lot and they have not proved to be very hardy fish in my experience. Just my 2 cents.

[Lady Hobbs]

Who's to say. Dogs live to breed but don't die off when not given the opportunity or live a life other than a good one. Possibly being cooped up in a glass box with constant aggression is not the way to go either. I would opt for a contended tank rather than have all that chasing and dominance.

It's not like fish just swim around thinking about sex all their lives. LOL They only think about it when a female is in the tank.

[Nick_Pavlovski]

I think questions like these are always hard...some people just prefer to never think about them.
Ultimately the decision made is always a personal one...hence my comment of "conscience vote".
I suppose the decision you make has to be the one that you feel is of the highest standards but also enables you to sleep at night.
Good on you for thinking about it...it's made me reconsider just how many fish I'm going to add to my (re)new(ed) tank on Thursday. I'll be adding a few less - I want those in there to have the best life possible.

[Sasquatch]

That's a good decision. I find that in many cases with these ethical questions people forget to consider the long term.

They initially decide that it's "wrong" to let the babies get eaten and a few months down the line they have a huge overstocking problem and are forced to remove the excess fish and try to get rid of them, or even euthanize them. Meanwhile their fish are living in a dirty environment, exposed to disease, aggression problems etc ....

[Drumachine09]

Its not un ethical at all. As cocoa said, its the circle of life.


And i dont know what tangent you are going on about that humans are not the gold standard of morality. We are the most intelligent species. We can make decisions. You cant just go and compare a human intellect to that of an animals.


This seems like its going contreversial.

[tmmycat]

And i dont know what tangent you are going on about that humans are not the gold standard of morality.

I guess I was thinking about how humans have become so good at killing each other, and killing other species.

Not everyone is like that of course ... lots of humans are peaceful.

[Drumachine09]

I guess I was thinking about how humans have become so good at killing each other, and killing other species.

Not everyone is like that of course ... lots of humans are peaceful.


I thought you were saying that animals had the capability to be moral.

[tmmycat]

I thought you were saying that animals had the capability to be moral.

hmm, I wasn't thinking about that, but it is an interesting question. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess it depends on how you define "moral" behavior. even among humans it is subjective difficult to define - I'm guessing it would be even more difficult to define between species.

I was just thinking that if there *is* a gold standard for morality (an inter-planetary competition maybe! :-) ... humans are definitely disqualified. :-) (and ... therefore ... humans shouldn't be too quick to judge other species that are prone to cannibalism)

What an interesting discussion, thanks for replying everyone.

I think this conversation has convinced me to get same-sex guppies ... and definitely to put fewer fish in my new tank.

[Jahosacat]

I found my first guppy babies last night. I didn't realize I had a pregnant female and she died giving birth. I decided not to try to get the babies out. Trying to net them out would stress out all of the fish in the tank, including the babies. I have lots of plastic plants in the tank; lots of places for the babies to hide. I think that it would be wrong to try to take the babies out and place them in small tanks which will become cramped. In that tank as they age they'll continue to breed and you can't even give pet store guppy babies away.The strong, healthy, fast babies will live. Nature controls animal populations in this way.

I agree with the thought that you should think about this issue before buying pairs - which most people probably don't do. If you have a problem with babies of any species being eaten, then only buy animals of the same sex.

[jttt3]

I say let em eat the fry.

If you don't want the extra fish, you have to find someway to get rid of them, and letting nature play out in as limited of a space as you have is probably better than flushing them down the drain or using them as plant food.

lol too bad you can't *fix* fish, best you can do is avoid mating pairs. The guy at the pet store when I bought my Zebras asked why I didn't want the bigger fish, I told him I didn't really want females, he didn't understand why I wouldn't want them to mate. I said Just give me the small ones please, paid and left lol.

[tmmycat]

yeah ... I see your point that the eating is natural but my conscience won't let me do anything that results in a crowded tank ... I just have too vivid of an imagination I guess...

I'm picturing 100 men, women, and children in a small room; give them each a knife...

yikes!

At best, all of them will feel constantly stressed and afraid. And at worse, if they start to kill each other, the killing would be more horrifying than normal because of the tiny space ... everyone would have to watch ...

anyway that mental image is why I'm not going to get M+F guppies... dying is totally natural in the wild but I want to minimize the horror in my tiny 7-gallon tank...