Watch it here

Yet another Chinese event is by many considered to be tainted with animal cruelty, and just as with the olympics, the unlucky animals are goldfish. at the opening gala of China’s lunar new year festival earlier this month they shower goldfish swimming in perfect military formations. The show put on by magician Fu Yandong was well received by the audience but have sparked outcry in animal activist circles as the only explanation to the trick according to them is magnets in the stomachs of the goldfish. The goldfish in in another word not so much swimming as being dragged. There are many factors supporting this hypothesis including the very shallow water the goldfish is swimming in. The shallow water would allow magnets to work which wouldn´t be possible in deeper water. Experts in the field agrees and think the fish might have been fed food with metal shavings on it.

Fu has denied the accusation of animal cruelty, telling one news programme: “If I used magnets, the fish would stick together.”  This is not necessarily true and a magician never reveal his trick even if discovered right?

Another theory that has been put forward is that it is fake fish but experts reject this idea in unison as the replicas would not meet the scrutiny of 100s of million of viewers.

A coalition of 53 groups sent a letter to Chinese broadcaster CCTV asking them to prevent magician Fu Yandong performing it again at the closing ceremony.

Goldfish

That’s right.. The new team which has been charged with looking out for the safety and wellbeing of the representatives of the G20 summit are six goldfish.

The people in charge at the Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, have sworn in this “seal team” of fish to help keep tabs on the purity of the water in the bathrooms of the facility, in the hope that they will be able to sound the alarm if something is fishy.

Oh Su-Young, who heads up public relations for the venue, has told the AFP that the crack team of goldfish are being utilized as part of the process of inspecting the venue before the representatives arrive for the G20 summit, adding: “The fish also symbolize an eco-friendly water policy, which recycles used water for restrooms.” There was no mention made of exactly where this recycled water came from..

One of the people who will benefit from the efforts of these goldfish is British prime minister David Cameron when the summit takes place this 11th and 12th of November.

However, this is not the first time this year where animals have been trained and put to good use for the safety and wellbeing of our world leaders.

During the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the police force of India scooped up monkeys and trained them to run regular patrols in the athlete’s village as well as the venues of the event.

These unlikely bouncers with long tails were meant to protect spectators and athletes alike, from the notorious Bonnet monkey, which supposedly holds a grudge against us humans.

This is certainly an interesting way to get people interested in conserving our planets’ water supply.

It appears that finally someone has come up with a way for us to be more conscientious of how much water we use.. Use less, or kill of your friend.. A rather ingenious, if a little sadistic, designer by the name of Yan Lu has come up with a sink that basically threatens to kill off an innocent goldfish if you use too much water when washing your hands.

It works much on the same principal as a toilet. As you wash your hands the water slowly empties out of a bowl which houses your friendly neighborhood goldfish, and when you are finished, gradually places more water back into the bowl.

The invention has been dubbed the “Poor Little Fishbowl Sink” and has been making quite a big splash in articles around the globe. You don’t need to worry about washing your hands with fishy water either, the water from the bowl empties into a different place, and doesn’t come out of the tap.

Of course, Yan Lu is not a sadist, so the bowl will never completely empty, though you can bet the poor goldfish is getting quite a workout on the old heart every time his home starts to disappear!

Lu is quoted as saying on his website: “As consumption is incalculable, saving is often neglected through daily consumption. Rather than forcing people to consume less, thus depressing the using experience, Poor Little Fish basin offers an emotional way to persuade consumers to think about saving water, by making consumption tangible.”

Way to go and help save the planet Lu! A few stressed out goldfish is worth it, if we can help ourselves to stop being so selfish by wasting water.

Goldfish - Not the one in story.

Nick Richards, a 16 year old fishing enthusiast from the UK, reeled in a whopper of a goldfish from a lake in Poole. The fish weighs an astounding 5 lbs, which is only 2 lbs less than the world record for goldfish. By all accounts it appears to be the biggest goldfish ever caught in Britain, and the youngster is quite pleased with the catch. He had set out to catch a common carp, which happen to be in the same family as the goldfish, but instead he reeled in this golden monster.

This is quite a catch, considering that goldfish are only generally 1 inch to 9 inches long, and generally do not weigh in at any more than however they do have the habit of growing to suit their surroundings. Another reason this is such an amazing catch is that goldfish can generally only survive in tropical to subtropical waters, and any sudden changes in temperature can be potentially fatal for the fish.

When asked to comment on the catch he had this to say, “Apparently it’s the biggest ever caught in the UK. I’ve heard it weighs only 2lb less than the world record.”

I would hate to burst the kids’ bubble, but while this may be the largest goldfish in the UK, the record still goes to the goldfish discovered on the west coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. That fish measured a staggering 2.5 meters long, by 1.70 meters tall! No weight was given for the monstrous fish, but I guarantee it was a wee bit over 7 lbs. Sorry kid, better luck next time.

That being said, no one can say for sure just how the goldfish Nick caught got into the lake, however there are a few generalized ideas which may explain the phenomenon.

It is believed that the goldfish started out as one of the prizes commonly doled out at fairgrounds in Dorset town, but was later abandoned when it got too big to live in its bowl. It is not an uncommon occurrence for prize goldfish such as these to be tossed into lakes and ponds, as the owners get bored of them, or they do not want to be bothered with finding more suitable living arrangements when they outgrow their bowl.

This is good news for fishing enthusiasts such as Nick, as they can sometimes reel in a whopper from surrounding lakes, and have a good fish story to tell. However it should be noted that the majority of the goldfish which are tossed aside as yesterday’s news, often don’t make it long enough in the wild to be considered today’s news.

It is not known what Nick plans to do with the fish, however you can rest assured it is most likely not going into his frying pan.

A transparent goldfish that reveals its inner organs has been developed by a joint research team of Mie University and Nagoya University in Japan.

The aim of the project was to create a transparent fish that makes it possible for researchers to study blood constituents and organ behaviour without having to dissect the animal. Unlike ordinary goldfish variants, this type has therefore been made really big and can weigh up to 1 kg. Up until now, the transparent fish of choice for researchers have been the see-through zebrafish, but this tiny fish only weigh abut 3 grams and is therefore much more difficult to study than the 1 kg goldfish.

The translucent goldfish was developed in just three years by repeatedly letting selected pale goldfish specimens mate with each other.

“Pale-colored goldfish have little commercial value, but their negative value has turned into a positive,” said Mie University Associate Professor Yutaka Tamaru.

The creation of a transparent goldfish was announced Wednesday last week at the annual meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan.

According to its keeper Barbara Woodford, 61, of Gloucester, the goldfish Ginger managed to survive for 13 hours on the floor behind a cupboard after leaping out of its bowl during the night or early in the morning.

When Woodford woke up at 7 am, she found the bowl empty and started to look for her pet, but to no avail. When it was time for her to leave for work she had still not found Ginger. When Woodward returned from work around 8 pm, she feared the worst but made a new attempt and finally managed to find her missing goldfish after moving the cupboard on which the fishbowl was standing.

“I picked him up with a spatula and his mouth started moving. I put him back into the water and off he went. He was swimming fabulously. I couldn’t believe it – it was a real Christmas miracle,” Woodward explains.

Woodward received Ginger as a birthday present in August. Recently, she had noticed how her pet was jumping up out of the water a lot. “We thought nothing of it,” says Woodward. “Apparently goldfish jump when they need more oxygen, so on this occasion he obviously jumped right out.”

A spokesman for the Association of Midland Goldfish Keepers said: “Fish can survive quite a while out of the water, as long as their gills remain moist, allowing them to breathe. But this is the longest I’ve heard of a goldfish staying alive. It’s quite astonishing.“

How can I prevent accidents like this from happening?

• Avoid keeping goldfish in bowls. A normal sized goldfish bowl is actually too small to comfortably house a fish as large and active as the goldfish.
  
• If your fish repeatedly tries to jump out of its home, try to figure out why. There are many reasons why a fish will try to jump out of its home, such as low oxygen levels, poor water quality, an aquarium or bowl that is too small, or bullying tank mates. If a fish needs to breathe air at the surface, it rarely jumps out of the aquarium – it just swims to the surface and puts its mouth above the water. Some fish species will however try to escape if the oxygen level is so low that they think they are stuck in a puddle that is gradually drying out.
  
• Some fish species are natural jumpers, e.g. because they are used to catching insects above the water in the wild or because they jump out of the water to impress a mate during courtship. Such species should always be kept in covered aquariums to prevent them from ending up on the floor.
  
• Always get a second opinion. Unfortunately, many pet shops that sell goldfish bowls, betta vases and similar have tendency to downplay the requirements of these fishes. If you are told that goldfish breathe by jumping into the air, that fish tattooed with neon-colours are doing great, or that a Siamese fighting fish in a vase need no food because it will nibble on flower roots, ask for a second opinion from someone who isn’t trying to sell you something. You can for instance visit an online forum or contact an aquarium club.
  
• If you decide to give someone a pet for their birthday, make sure that you also give them all instructions needed to care for that particular pet. Also make sure that they actually want a pet and have enough time, money and dedication to care for a living creature in the long run. A goldfish can live for 40 years or more.

Time to reveal a new WordPress theme. I learned a lot when I made the first two WordPress themes below and I thought it was about time I made an aquarium related one. This is after all first and foremost an aquarium site. It is a simple theme with widget ready sidebars and gravatar support. It is also ad ready and the download file includes instructions on how to activate ads. I hope someone will like and have use for it. You can download this theme Here

Official description: Description: A clean simple SEO optimized 3 column blue aquarium inspired theme. The theme has two widget ready sidebars and gravatar support. The theme is Adsense (and other ads) ready and display ads in the 3 first post on each page to comply with Adsense TOS. Features a bio box that can be edited independently of the side bars. Theme is fully compatible with WordPress 2.6. Find more of my themes on my theme page

Tags: valid CSS, white, blue, orange, yellow, 3 columns, 3 column, three column, three columns, fixed width, widget, widget ready, simple, right sidebar, left sidebar, valid CSS, Adsense ready, add ready, bio box, gravatar support, gravatar, minimalistic, funky, fish, aquarium, pet, goldfish, pets

Switzerland has adopted new strict animal cruelty laws. The new law contains more strict rules regulating how to keep most pets and domestic animal. An example is that many animals such as hamsters, lamas, alpacas and sheep no longer can be kept alone. They need to have visual contact with other specimens of the same species. Another example is that people who want to buy their first dog have to go to compulsory classes for “want to be dog owners” before they can legally buy a dog. The law details how all domestic animals should be kept regardless of whether they are kept as pet, for scientific research or in zoos.

I will not go into depth about exactly what this new rule stipulates but I will say a few words relating to fish keeping (If you live in Switzerland and want to know more about I recommend reading the original law text or contact a local authority).

The law bans the flushing live fish. You need to kill the fish before you can legally flush it. The law does not state exactly how the fish should be killed before being flushed.

New research have shown that fish are much smarter than scientist previously thought and many fish species as just as intelligent as rats.

Dr Mike Webster of St Andrews University have researched the intelligence in fish and his research shows that fish shows clear signs of intelligence when they are in danger. He says that:
“It is probably accurate to say that many fishes such as minnows, sticklebacks and guppies are capable of the same intellectual feats as rats or mice.

Goldfish don’t have goldfish memories

His experiments have shown how fish use techniques learned through shared learning to avoid predators. He discovered that a fish that is separated from the shoal by a clear plastic divider will make its own decisions on how to avoid predators while a fish that is kept with other fish will decide on how to act by watching the rest of the fish and the choices they make.

Dr Mike Webster claims that “These experiments provide clear evidence that minnows increasingly rely on social learning as the basis for their foraging decisions as the perceived threat of a predator increases.”

He further claims that this dispels the old myths of goldfish memory and that fish have notoriously poor memories.

I am sure the fact that fish are smarter than they are given credit for doesn’t come as a surprise for any aquarist, especially not to aquarists that have kept South or Central American cichlids like jags and Oscars. Species that are know to depress if they get under stimulated and that sometimes (some specimens) don’t eat if the owner is away.

Does anyone remember the Danish artist Marco Evaristti. No? I am not surprised. But if I ask you if you remember the artist who put goldfish in blenders a few years back I am sure most of you know who I am talking about. A quick recap for those of you who don’t remember the story. Marco Evaristti displayed an exhibition at the art museum in Trapholt, Kolding in Denmark. In the exhibition he placed goldfish in household blenders and invited the viewers to turn on the blenders and kill the fish if they wanted to. This was in the year 2000, now he wants to display a new exhibit where he feeds the dead body of an executed prisoner to goldfish.

The convict in question is Gene Harthorn who is awaiting the death penalty for murder in Texas. He has given the artist consent to use his body as fish food in the name of art.

Marco Evaristti, who doesn’t see anything ethically wrong with his project want to freeze the body of the convict and make fish food out of it. He has found a German company that is willing to freeze the body. He wants to have an exhibition featuring a large tank with hundreds of goldfish and allow the visitors to feed the dead body to them.

The purpose of the art is to inspire discussion about the death penalty. He wants to create opinion surrounding the fact that people are killed legally in our western civilization.

He has yet to find a venue to display his art in.