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Originally Posted by reef_raf
teevee, by the statement "but it is the responsibility of human beings to take care of the creatures we share the planet with, not to abuse them", I expect you'll be selling your tank? Keeping ANY fish in a glass box, regardless of size, is abusing that animal....period.
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I too have some free time, and enjoy a good discussion. So I will jump in by saying that you are applying human values to an animal with the brain size of a pencil eraser. Therefore the term "Happy" is misplaced. My feeling is that fish live their lives by instinct, and if the animal is well fed, and placed in half decent surroundings its comfort level is satisfied. As we are unable to talk to the animal, we can only look at behaviour to determine if indeed it is "happy". I would be so bold as to say that the size of the glass box we keep it in is of very little concern to most fish (except Tangs, which even I will not try to keep in a tank less than four feet)
All this in my mind was verified by a 10" French Angel, which lived in the large display tank at Pisces. One day that tank broke, and that fish survived. They put him into a 72 gallon tank, where he spent the next year. The fish looked quite comfortable in that small tank. When the big tank was repaired the angel was put back in. To this day he still looks "happy"
As I said this is all very subjective as the objects of this discussion can't tell us anything.
