Your Heart rate and Blood pressure shooting too high? Well, Plymouth University and the University of Exeter has found the solution for this by just watching fishes in the aquarium. Yes, you read it right. According to the research conducted by these two universities, they saw a noticeable reduction in Blood Pressure and Heart rate. You will feel calm and de-stress watching fishes, be it in your fish tank or at the aquarium shops. But, have you ever thought about the fishes and their trauma in small tanks away from their natural habitat?
Goldfishes selling in the colored (chemical) water on the roadside, is a common view in the streets of Indian Cities. These fishes are kept in a small bowl and contaminated water looks more attractive to the public because of the artificial arrangements, but hardly anyone knows the trauma and stress faced by fishes kept in those bowls. The saddest part of the entire story is that people buy those fishes and encourage such vendors to sell more and more fishes. Experts say that low surface bowls, no water filters and limited spaces for the fish is inhuman. A goldfish in a bowl survives for around 2-3 weeks or a month maximum, however, in a pond the same goldfish species survive for 20 years. 95% of the saltwater fish originates from wild majorly from Fiji, Indonesia, and other pacific islands.
Apart from these roadside sellers, aquarium shops are no less ranked when it comes to inhuman treatment to fishes. The most traumatic situations faced by fishes is while handling them. 70% of the aquarium shops have working professionals who do not expertise in handling fishes.
Chasing a fish inside an aquarium with a net can cause serious injuries to fish because they most like collide with the aquarium glass or rub against so-called “aquarium toys”. As a buyer, we should always administer such things while in aquarium shops and confront the handler or the aquarium shop owner if we witness such handling.
Even the Government seems to be less responsive in such matters. On November 30, 2017 Government has withdrawn the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Aquarium and Fish Tank Animals Shop) Rules, 2017 which earlier comprised of some rules for the Aquarium shop owners and Fish traders to register themselves under a license category and follow certain guidelines for the health and hygiene of fishes.
However, apart from everything we discussed above, there are more interesting and positive facts about fishes that you would love to know. Fishes are considered to be more sensible when it comes to previous social interactions. They can relate to past interactions with other fishes and rub against each other as a part of affection. Adding to this, just like feeling pleasure, fishes do feel pain as well. They have a very sensitive nervous system and they react to painful and traumatic conditions.
Want to help Fishes?
After reading all this on how a fish experiences pain and trauma in her entire lifespan, if you want to help these small creatures then please stop encouraging the local aquarium shops that are more concerned about the profit rather than a life. If you want to keep fishes, reach out to the local shelters and rescue group, and see if they have fishes that need a home. Furthermore, if your friends and relatives own an aquarium just make sure and guide them about the requirements of fish and try them to provide the natural habitat as much as you can. This is the least you can do to help them.
Does your fish need Medical Attention?
A few of the common injuries that can be seen in aquarium fishes are missing scales, damaged eyes, nipped fins, dislocated jaws, etc. This physical damage can more be easily seen and diagnosed rather than the diseases coming from poor diet and genes. The main cause of these injuries can be handling, fighting, etc.
Many times fishes don’t get well along inside the aquarium tanks. The aggressive fish is likely to dominate the domicile fishes which results in nipped fins. A bite on the fish body can also cause scale damage. The first thing we need to do is to separate the victim fish in a separate tank. To promote a healthy slime coat which acts just like a Band-Aid on the fish, use stress coat or SeaChem Prime water conditioner, and the fish will eventually and slowly heal.
Also, fishing with protruding eyes is more likely to get their eyes damaged being the bulging and sensitive part. In such cases, we simply need to remove the fish and put it in a separate tank during the recovery phase and use the water conditioning agents for fish.
Make sure to visit a fish veterinarian expert in case the fish is not healed for a long time.
Let’s join hands together and promise ourselves to bring justice to these small beautiful creatures since India does not even have a low to support them. Don’t be just an Indian, be a responsible Indian.
For more information, please reach out to SAS India.
