Paul B
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Excellence Award
Reef Tank 365
Reef Of The Month
Article Contributor
Rock Pool Reef Keepers
I just finished having breakfast with my wife. I made her egg whites and I had steel cut oatmeal, but who cares. I was thinking about what our fish goes through before we get them. It goes something like this:
The fish, lets say it's a copperband butterfly is swimming around the reef, minding his own business perhaps raising his dorsal fin occasionally if he sees a cute Babe Copperband who looks single. He is sticking his snout in crevices looking for worms for breakfast while also scanning the sea scape for moray eels, groupers, sharks and anything else that would eat him, when all of a sudden he finds himself in a net. He never saw a net and doesn't know what to make of it. He is lifted out of the water, sees the bright sun and is in a place he has never seen. He gasps for breath and tries to swim away but his tail doesn't seem to work. Then he is thrown into a small bucket with 6 or 7 other fish, some of which he doesn't even like.
After a noisy ride in a boat he arrives at a beach where some of his fellow fish are not feeling to well so they are thrown on to the sand. But he is thrown into a larger bucket and gets a ride in a rusty Oldsmobile station wagon to a holding facility with concrete tanks where he is deposited with many more fish.
He realizes he is hungry but there is nothing to eat, he also realizes he is scared, but there is no place to hide.
The next day he is again netted and put into a plastic bag which he thinks is the belly of a jellyfish having never seen a plastic bag. Something is added to the bag to make him "woozy", maybe LSD.
Now he is really terrified and he shows his fear by turning a dark gray to mute his beautiful yellow stripes.
He doesn't know it but now he is in the hold of a commercial air liner where he will stay for an entire day. His captors didn't pay for extra leg room either.
Eventually it gets very bright and someone cuts open the bag he is in with a razor blade and dumps him into a dark, Tupperware container that has 2" of water in it and 30 other, different fish that he never met. The water is too shallow for him to even "stand" upright. A tiny hose is dripping odd tasting water into this tub and he is starting to wake up and become more terrified.
Now he is netted and put into a small glass tank.
He has never encountered glass and tries to swim through it. He keeps bumping his delicate snout on the glass and can't figure out why this "water" is so hard. He realizes he is stuck.
His lateral line keeps telling him there is something surrounding him, but he can't see it.
All of a sudden there are strange particles in the water, weird looking flakes and pellets along with tiny dead shrimp which he has never seen before. He is now really hungry but can't find anything that looks like the food he has been eating every day of his life.
OMG, he realizes he must have died and went to the "other "place besides heaven.
But, No!
He is in a store, an LFS, whatever that is, marked $39.99.
Humans constantly walk by on their silly legs ogling at him and tapping the glass.
A net comes in and chases him around until it traps him against the glass and lifts him out, he again gasps for water as he did before and he really hates when that happens.
Now he is put into the smallest place he has ever been in and it gets very dark.
He is running out of oxygen and he can't move more than a few inches. He is more terrified than he has ever been.
He is thinking he is going to be chopped up with onions, doused with olive oil, stuffed into a small can labeled "Dolphin Safe" and put on a shelf in the canned food aisle of "Super Stop and Shop".
The light returns and a human hand plunges into the bag and takes him out, he knows he will be eaten any second and wishes he could close his eyes, then he realizes, he has no eye lids.
Now he is in a tiny container and it has an irritating blue chemical in it that he doesn't recognize.
After an hour of torture he is placed into a larger, but still tiny tank with that same chemical.
Again some particles are added to his jail cell.
Now if this copperband was going into my tank, he would be released into a natural tank with plenty of hiding places and in a day or so of getting comfortable, eating food he recognizes he would make friends with the other fish and he would go on to live 10 or 15 years of heavenly bliss.
If he is going to some one who quarantines, he will go into a bare tank with plumbing elbows and little else but a bright light.
He will stay there for 72 days all the while saying Jesus, Mary and Josephine, what the heck did I ever do to deserve this!
Will this ever end!.
After the 72 days, he goes into a tank and tries to go about his business without getting into trouble because he doesn't want to be punished any more.
The fish, lets say it's a copperband butterfly is swimming around the reef, minding his own business perhaps raising his dorsal fin occasionally if he sees a cute Babe Copperband who looks single. He is sticking his snout in crevices looking for worms for breakfast while also scanning the sea scape for moray eels, groupers, sharks and anything else that would eat him, when all of a sudden he finds himself in a net. He never saw a net and doesn't know what to make of it. He is lifted out of the water, sees the bright sun and is in a place he has never seen. He gasps for breath and tries to swim away but his tail doesn't seem to work. Then he is thrown into a small bucket with 6 or 7 other fish, some of which he doesn't even like.
After a noisy ride in a boat he arrives at a beach where some of his fellow fish are not feeling to well so they are thrown on to the sand. But he is thrown into a larger bucket and gets a ride in a rusty Oldsmobile station wagon to a holding facility with concrete tanks where he is deposited with many more fish.
He realizes he is hungry but there is nothing to eat, he also realizes he is scared, but there is no place to hide.
The next day he is again netted and put into a plastic bag which he thinks is the belly of a jellyfish having never seen a plastic bag. Something is added to the bag to make him "woozy", maybe LSD.
Now he is really terrified and he shows his fear by turning a dark gray to mute his beautiful yellow stripes.
He doesn't know it but now he is in the hold of a commercial air liner where he will stay for an entire day. His captors didn't pay for extra leg room either.
Eventually it gets very bright and someone cuts open the bag he is in with a razor blade and dumps him into a dark, Tupperware container that has 2" of water in it and 30 other, different fish that he never met. The water is too shallow for him to even "stand" upright. A tiny hose is dripping odd tasting water into this tub and he is starting to wake up and become more terrified.
Now he is netted and put into a small glass tank.
He has never encountered glass and tries to swim through it. He keeps bumping his delicate snout on the glass and can't figure out why this "water" is so hard. He realizes he is stuck.
His lateral line keeps telling him there is something surrounding him, but he can't see it.
All of a sudden there are strange particles in the water, weird looking flakes and pellets along with tiny dead shrimp which he has never seen before. He is now really hungry but can't find anything that looks like the food he has been eating every day of his life.
OMG, he realizes he must have died and went to the "other "place besides heaven.
But, No!
He is in a store, an LFS, whatever that is, marked $39.99.
Humans constantly walk by on their silly legs ogling at him and tapping the glass.
A net comes in and chases him around until it traps him against the glass and lifts him out, he again gasps for water as he did before and he really hates when that happens.
Now he is put into the smallest place he has ever been in and it gets very dark.
He is running out of oxygen and he can't move more than a few inches. He is more terrified than he has ever been.
He is thinking he is going to be chopped up with onions, doused with olive oil, stuffed into a small can labeled "Dolphin Safe" and put on a shelf in the canned food aisle of "Super Stop and Shop".
The light returns and a human hand plunges into the bag and takes him out, he knows he will be eaten any second and wishes he could close his eyes, then he realizes, he has no eye lids.
Now he is in a tiny container and it has an irritating blue chemical in it that he doesn't recognize.
After an hour of torture he is placed into a larger, but still tiny tank with that same chemical.
Again some particles are added to his jail cell.
Now if this copperband was going into my tank, he would be released into a natural tank with plenty of hiding places and in a day or so of getting comfortable, eating food he recognizes he would make friends with the other fish and he would go on to live 10 or 15 years of heavenly bliss.
If he is going to some one who quarantines, he will go into a bare tank with plumbing elbows and little else but a bright light.
He will stay there for 72 days all the while saying Jesus, Mary and Josephine, what the heck did I ever do to deserve this!
Will this ever end!.
After the 72 days, he goes into a tank and tries to go about his business without getting into trouble because he doesn't want to be punished any more.
