Quote:
Originally Posted by leebca  Heinz,
Parasite eating fishes should not be collected and put into home aquariums. There are some good reasons to support this position:
1. Groups of up to 4 such fish form cleaning stations on the reef. Some very large marine fishes come to the known cleaning areas to be cleaned. When the fish are collected there are consequences, none good:
a. The remaining fish are so swamped with being unable to keep up the cleaning of the fish that show up, they die from shear exhaustion;
b. The fish are totally collected (very easy for the collector to get them all -- they are very brave and approach the diver to 'clean him.') from the station, and the cleaning station is destroyed; and
c. The fish used to being cleaned continue to go infected and spread disease in the reef.
2. In the aquarium, cleaner fishes can’t get enough ‘food parasites’ from the captive fish. They revert back to their basic food, which is to eat the slime coating off the fish. The pecking you see the cleaner fish do is actually removing mucous coating from the fish. The mucous coating is fairly high in proteins and nutrients. Even if the aquarist believes the captive parasite eating fish is eating brine and/or other foods put into the aquarium, these fish keep stripping off the mucous coating of the captive fishes. There are again some consequences to this, none good here, either:
a. The fish, now short mucous coating, can actually contract bacterial infections more easily;
b. The fish, having to replace mucous coating more than it would normally have to is now spending energy in this direction, rather than having extra/free energy to store up faster, or to use to keep real disease away and of course to handle the stress that captivity imposes on them.
3. The totally wrong perception is that cleaner fish remove parasites such as Marine Ich from captive marine fishes. They don’t. If the aquarist will understand that the Marine Ich parasite actually burrows under the top layer of skin of the fish, the aquarist understands the cleaner fish isn’t removing these at all. This is shown by opening up the gut of cleaner fish. No cleaner fish gut was found to contain Marine Ich parasites in the wild or in captivity.
4. The whole concept of having cleaner fish will keep disease out of the aquarium is quite wrong. If 3. isn’t convincing then just think for a minute. If the cleaner fish is keeping disease down, then who cleans the cleaner fish?
There is no gain except for the amusement of the aquarist. Ergo: sad to see these fish in captivity. |
Could this not be said for all things we put into our aquariums? Particularly your last statement "There is no gain except for the amusement of the aquarist." Every day we are taking fish, corals, plants, etc from the oceans and reefs for whose enjoyment? Us , the aquarist. And for what purpose, our enjoyment.