Tang Police or Tang Nazis?

[shrimpchips]

Originally Posted by Youngster Dan

Wouldn't the actual act of catching the fish induce stress (ie elevated cortisol) and so this stat is completely misleading? As every fish being tested is at an artificially elevated level of cortisol, and it being nearly impossible to take a baseline measurement?

both fish are presumably caught and handled so that effect should not be a confound. If they can see a difference, and there's no change to their baseline measures (while they might not be true baselines), then it's a fine measure.


And the citation is more than likely to be generalizable to other fish - besides, it certainly isnt the biggest generalization of the literature. Assuming one large ref dwelling genus with a similar behavior acts and responds similarly with Tangs isn't a bad assumption.

[Chin_Lee]

Is anybody willing to create a poll listing off the number off fishes that you ESTIMATE that you have bought and died while in your care? If I were to create this poll, I wouldn't even give the option of 0-10 because that is not realistic. And whatever choices anybody made, I would multiply by 1.5 to get the more accurate true numbers.
Put it bluntly, we all contribute to the practice of sacrificing animals for entertainment. So regardless you give the fish a 50 or 100 or 200 gallon tanks in comparision to their natural habitat, we are only trying to reassure ourselves that we are doing the right thing.

[daniella3d]

Only one for me since I started a year and half ago and that was a green mandarin that was killed by a yellow tang

I sold the yellow tang. Shame because that green mandarin was with me since the begining and was fat and healthy eating white worms, bloodworms and fish roe. I have the female remaining but never again a yellow tang for me.

Now the most important thing in my tank is no aggression and any aggressive fish is sold.

The worse thing to do to fish is not doing quarantine and letting them live with parasites.

Originally Posted by Chin_Lee

Is anybody willing to create a poll listing off the number off fishes that you ESTIMATE that you have bought and died while in your care? If I were to create this poll, I wouldn't even give the option of 0-10 because that is not realistic. And whatever choices anybody made, I would multiply by 1.5 to get the more accurate true numbers.

[Youngster Dan]

Originally Posted by shrimpchips

both fish are presumably caught and handled so that effect should not be a confound. If they can see a difference, and there's no change to their baseline measures (while they might not be true baselines), then it's a fine measure.

Sorry, I'm going to disagree with this. Though my disagreement is purely trivial, as it seems the cortisol levels are likely measured passively by collecting it from fecal matter, and not from being handled.

I doubt cortisol levels are being added on top of each other like you suggest and you cannot simply take levels from one group and subtract it from another. For example, consider you and I have the same level of fitness and I am sitting reading articles on canreef and you are currently going for a jog. You will have a higher heart rate than myself. Now, imagine that we both have tangs in a small tank, and the "tang police" are out for blood and decide they are out to get you and myself. Both of us will sprint as fast as we can to get away from nasty insults and condescending attitudes of the tang police! If you were to then measure our heart rate after we have been sprinting for a while, our heart rates would be similar despite the fact that you had been jogging whereas I was sitting. So, from our sprinting heart rate data alone it would be impossible to determine what our "baseline" was.

Perhaps a silly example, but that is just how I interpret it.