im sorry i really do like oscars

todd (my largest eb acara is also called todd, to clear up confusion), acara afficionado, pleco enthusiast

[dailyfrogs]

the f in frog stands for friendship

[dailyfrogs]

the r in frog stands for respect

[dailyfrogs]

the o in frog stands for optimism

[frogginbloggin]

the g in frog stands for green

[bettasaurus]

Fancy guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

See more of similar pictures here

[fish-plus-shrimp]

My black water Hyalobagrus flavus tank the main plants are crypts, Homalomena, buce, Lagenandra, barclaya, a mix of taiwan and Christmas moss and Hygroryza Aristata

[snowflakeeel]

[gahdamnpunk]

PLUS!!:

Toxic for rabbits: Anise, Clove, Oregano, Tea Tree, Wintergreen Safe for rabbits: Lavender, lemon, orange, fennel,  eucalyptus and peppermint, all should be diluted with water!

[autisticandroids]

you cant dilute oil with water

[killerslowpoke]

NO essential oils are safe for pets, period. There shouldn’t be any reason to be using them anywhere on or near your animals.

[andinoacarapulcher]

those safe ones you listed are all just about as toxic as the dangerous ones. i have my doubts about the dog story because dogs have the liver enzymes to be able to eliminate essential oils from the body and most cases of poisoning are from ingestion, burns, or allergic reactions but cats cannot eliminate essential oils once theyve accumulated in the body and will cause organ failure. all animals have much more sensitive noses than us and whats a mild fragrance to you is walking around with a bottle of essential oils under your nose 24/7 for them.

you have no reason to ever use essential oils on your pet ever, please use a doggy perfume or a bath if they smell bad and a regular flea and tick medication instead of evergreen/mint/whatever blends.

[anxiett-deactivated20200602]

I think they mean safe to use on yourself or to put in a diffuser, not to actually put on your pet

[andinoacarapulcher]

those are not safe to use in a diffuser around pets either. the particles can be inhaled or land on the pets fur/environment where they can be licked off.

[valtsv]

[hellopleco]

Armored catfish are decimating Texas waterways

The non-native fish, first noticed in the San Antonio River in the 1950s, have started thriving, reproducing populations in dozens of waterw

Today in crazy invasive plecos… 3.4 pound pleco sets record, gets kid scholarships. But wait, there’s more…

“…The Guadalupe River yielded the record armored catfish taken by bowfishing (a 6.34-pounder arrowed from the river’s Lake Dunlap in 2006) and the 5.25-pounder (caught on a trotline in 2009) that holds the Texas record in the “unrestricted” category.”

6 pound plecos… the invasive plecos are probably bigger than sailfins in the Amazon!

As always, research before you buy your fish and never throw your fish into the nearest lake/river when it outgrows the tank.

[medusid]

wow god just let this one happen huh

[fjordfolk]

Unpopular opinion apparently, but can’t we all just at least entertain the idea that rehoming a pet isn’t the absolute worst thing you could possibly do? Can we at least be open to the possibility of rehoming - and I’m talking about rehoming, taking proper time to screen possible homes and picking the most suitable one, not dumping them anywhere - sometimes even being the best option, even (or especially) for the animal? That it does not automatically make you selfish and irresponsible?

Pet owners losing heart or ability is never ideal, and ideally shouldn’t happen but it does, life happens, shit happens, and I personally feel that it sometimes may be better to look for a new and better situation than forcing a bad one out of pride or stigma. Nobody should be trapped in unhappy circumstances. That goes for animals, too.

[gahdamnpunk]

PLUS!!:

Toxic for rabbits: Anise, Clove, Oregano, Tea Tree, Wintergreen Safe for rabbits: Lavender, lemon, orange, fennel,  eucalyptus and peppermint, all should be diluted with water!

[autisticandroids]

you cant dilute oil with water

[killerslowpoke]

NO essential oils are safe for pets, period. There shouldn’t be any reason to be using them anywhere on or near your animals.

[andinoacarapulcher]

those safe ones you listed are all just about as toxic as the dangerous ones. i have my doubts about the dog story because dogs have the liver enzymes to be able to eliminate essential oils from the body and most cases of poisoning are from ingestion, burns, or allergic reactions but cats cannot eliminate essential oils once theyve accumulated in the body and will cause organ failure. all animals have much more sensitive noses than us and whats a mild fragrance to you is walking around with a bottle of essential oils under your nose 24/7 for them.

you have no reason to ever use essential oils on your pet ever, please use a doggy perfume or a bath if they smell bad and a regular flea and tick medication instead of evergreen/mint/whatever blends.

[eelpatrickharris-deactivated202]

fish that no hobbyist should own, period:

arapaimas

alligator gar (and most gars in general)

redtail catfish

peacock bass

lungfish

african tigerfish

payara/vampire tetras

sturgeon

arowanas

electric eels

stingrays

unless you live in an area where one of those fish is native and you can build a suitable pond; or you own a tank that exceeds 10,000 gallons and have the abilities and funds to maintain it; you have no business owning anything on that list.

it’s not elitist. it’s not some PETA-approved tree hugger nonsense. it’s just common sense. fish like arowanas, peacock bass, sturgeon, and redtail cats? big, strong, active fish that need more than a swimming pool to be comfortable. payaras, gars, lungfish, electric eels, and african tigerfish are large and dangerous. stingrays are delicate fish that require an insane amount of space.

yes, there are some serious fishkeepers who can house fish that size, but they’re few and far between. a proper redtail catfish enclosure would cost you more than a high-end Mercedes just to set up. if you’re willing to dedicate that much time and money to a fish, then you’re not a plain hobbyist.

(also, the Monster Fish Keepers forum should be burned to the ground. thanks for coming to my ted talk.)

[probablyafish]

For more clarification, fish like the Alligator Gar that can grow to be twice as large as a 6 foot human in their natural habitat, and live for 25-50 years, (the red tailed catfish is to the right of the human)

and naturally live in places like this

should NOT be housed in pathetic tanks/pools like this

This is literally just cruel. There is no reason to keep a monster fish indoors or even in captivity at all. What benefit do you even get out of cramping a giant fish into a small container?

The fucking pet trade is a huge factor as too why half of these monster fish are critically endangered. 

[screwyouandrew]

There’s a store that has a fully grown red tail in a 55 gallon where they can’t turn around and it makes me feel so shitty

[bettsplendens]

I agree with all of the above except the lungfish. Lungfish get big and need space, but they’re fairly lazy, they aren’t active swimmers. They can absolutely be housed indoors in a very large tank.

[anabantoid]

I disagree, mostly because “large tank” isn’t something people will get. What is a very large tank to you? A 210 is still only 6 feet long and will cost $400+. Custom tanks we’re talking about $1000+. The one person who can take care of a lungfish in humane and ethical manner is an atypical anomaly that isn’t counted when the trend of housing lungfish is something like 120-210 gallon tank. An LFS by me had a lungfish in a 7 foot tank for over fifteen years. It died recently at only about 20 years old, swollen from dropsy . The lungfish at the Shedd, Granddad, was over 90 when he passed away.

This is what happens to a lungfish when placed in a “very large tank”, and this was at a pretty well regarded store. This is the fate of lungfish in private captivity. They will die young, they will suffer, and then you can go out and buy another one to do it again.

[pufferpastries]

The complete reversal of of beliefs in fishblr vs the rest of the pet/animal/exotics community completely baffles me. 

For most of the community keeping animals is fine if they are from responsibly controlled domestic populations. And it would be very bad and controversial to take an animal from the wild (ex: a wild parrot or sugar glider or lizard) 

But in the fish community wild caught bettas and angels and ottos are seen as ideal and a fancy import while it is frowned upon to pick up a mass produced inbred fishy baby. 

Now I am not saying which is “wrong” or “right” or even if there could be a wrong/right answer that applies to every animal on Earth it just baffles me that no one is commenting on this. 

[biotopes]

It’s all relative. There’s not a one size fits all option.

The issue with domestic bettas isn’t that they’re captive bred, but that we bred them to have highly detrimental traits- like how the issue with pugs isn’t dog breeding, the issue is breeding in traits that make it difficult for them to breathe properly. Longfinned bettas, dragonscales and metallics, fish with messed up conformation- that’s the problem with domestic bettas, not that they are bred in captivity. And personally, I would rather pay $7 for a random pet store or craigslist veiltail than $40 for a thai import that has zero guarantee of being any healthier than said veiltail. As long as you don’t buy one of the inherently unhealthy morphs, though, I personally don’t care too much where you get your betta. 

Wild caught wild bettas are, the majority of the time, imported so that they can be bred, thus establishing a captive bred population. A lot of the wild bettas on aquabid and ebay are wild caught, but in the wild betta facebook groups, there’s someone breeding practically every recognized betta species alongside a handful of subspecies or species without official names yet. I prefer captive bred stock, provided they are pure (no hybrid blood) and match the wild type coloration. They usually do better in home aquaria, and I’m much more comfortable buying wild bettas with no specific intent to breed if they’re captive bred.

I suggest looking into Project Piaba and similar. You may also be interested in looking at the Goodeid Working Group and the Parosphromenus Project. The former is for sustainable wild collection of aquarium fish, and the latter coordinates captive breeding efforts of certain endangered fish, which of course involves or has in the past involved wild collection of fish in order to captive breed.

Neither captive bred nor wild caught is inherently good or bad. I support breeders who value quality of life and preservation of genetic integrity, and I support people who wild catch fish provided they do so sustainably. However, people who wild catch fish indiscriminately without caring about the wild populations, or breeders who breed detrimental qualities on purpose without caring about the quality of life issues are bad and I do not support that.

This is a topic that’s been discussed in the past, but you’re right, it definitely warrants more discussion. 

[hellopleco]

We interrupt your regularly scheduled loricariidae posts with a BLOAPY PSA.

(I am in no way a goldfish expert. Or a pleco expert. However this post is pleco relevent, because you can’t always get the right advice from where you buy your fish and google isn’t good with this one either. Tumblr formatting sucks.)

Please don’t keep a goldfish with a pleco.

They are from two completely different habitats. (Goldfish are cold water fish.)

They both are champion poop machines

And if you don’t keep your pleco fed, it’ll suck the slime off of your goldfish and murder it.

Oh and goldfish are also gluttons and will get to food before your pleco.

I know someone is going to say “but it works just fine for my fish” NO. Your goldfish and pleco aren’t happy or living their best life.

“But my common pleco is fine!” Yes, Pterygoplicthys are mostly indestructible but no, they’re not happy in cold water. (Outdoor koi ponds are an entirely different thing altogether.) Your goldfish is also not happy in tropical temperatures either.

“But it’s doing okay in a bowl!” JUST NO. I’ll leave #fishblr come after you about that. (Goldfish should be in large tanks with excellent filtration - I forget the gallon/goldfish ratio. It’s similar to plecos in that sense - the bigger the tank, the more intense filtration, more airflow, the better it is for your pleco. Not sure how goldfish feel about airflow.) No fish deserves a bowl. Honestly I wish I knew why they even sell 2.5 gallon tanks, but that’s unrelated to this post.

“My goldfish outgrew the tank and I tossed it into the river!” READ CRAZY INVASIVE PLECOS! (Tagged #pleco invasion - here on hello pleco) It’s the same problem! (Or similar) Also google “Asian carp”. They are even MORE invasive than plecos!

So what can you keep with goldfish?

NO PLECOS!

[hasbrotoys]

people who own huge, expensive and impractical animals have small dick energy

[hasbrotoys]

me looking for ur dick when I find out you keep a four foot fish in a five foot pond

[azurih]

[absquecognomen]

Who wants to watch a tiger have fun with a surfboard on grass? Too bad, you all get to see it now.

[ignitethesky]

So, I’m pretty sure this tiger is kept and being filmed specifically for social media notoriety and fame. I’m only reblogging it to include the following:

Here’s a link to a Vice News video, The Illegal Big Cats of Instagram, from a few years ago discussing the trend among wealthy young men in the middle east to keep big cats, how it’s encouraging animal trafficking, and about the people who have been killed by unsafe enclosures and handling practices. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euo3JaqFoss

I just searched the name credited along the bottom of this particular video in Instagram and it pulled up a user with 220k followers and looks like many, many big cats :(

This type of thing can happen here in the US too. I’ve stopped following any wolf and wolf-dog Instagrams for a similar issue. I can recommend some adorable egyptian mau house cat ones though.

[zeoia]

Reblogging for the commentary. I like finding other people who actually think about how the animals in these “cute” videos are being treated.

[maureen2musings]

I love watching the sun leak through the surface of the ocean 

ryanpernofski