Tang Police or Tang Nazis?

asylumdown · #1 01-07-2011, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lance

Absolutely. My thoughts as well. I personally believe a fish is better off in the ocean than in my little pretend reef.
Buuuuuut, just to mix it up a little: How do we really know our fishies aren't perfectly happy in their little glass boxes. If we provide them with good water conditions, a healthy diet, suitable tankmates and hiding and swimming areas, they may after all be tickled pink. Fish pretty much run on instinct, and instinct says: eat and don't be eaten. I can provide them with that. So who the hell really knows? I don't pretend to.

I know we can't ever truly know the mind of another creature, but in primatology, trying to figure out the level of intelligence of other animals is sort of the name of the game, and I think we've gotten pretty good at it. I think animal owners and lovers have a tendency to anthropomorphize their pets to an extreme degree. I don't think that the fish we keep are swimming around in their tanks, waxing poetic for the days when they swam free on the reef.

Primatologists work with animals using something called an ethogram, which is a list that attempts to exhaustively catalogue the entire behavioural suite of an animal in the most basic functional units. Generally speaking, the smarter the animal, the longer the ethogram. The most exhaustive ethogram for chimps that I've seen was literally hundreds of pages long, a human ethogram would probably be in the thousands.

I think if I were to try and make an ethogram for a tang, I'd probably be able to make it to half a page, if I was being rather liberal with my categories. Fish have behaviours that they can and need to exhibit. If we put them in a circumstance where they are unable to exhibit those behaviours, they will probably get stressed out, but they're not going to be thinking about it. The best we can do is to try and replicate their environment as best we can, but if we can't, the fish is not going to have a complex emotional response and sulk while it thinks about what it would rather be doing. The fish we keep react to stimuli and conditioning, that's pretty much it. My last tang was too busy attacking it's own reflection when I kept the sides clear of algae to consider that it's tank was too small. However, it was clearly too small for that fish and it exhibited behavioural problems because of it (so it's gone to a much larger home now). None of the other fish in that system have major neuroses, unless I do something that makes the environment incompatible to them (say, put them with tank mates they will fight with).

If there is a problem with the environment they are in, the fish will react negatively. They will get overly aggressive, or they'll stop eating, or they'll get sick. If they're not doing any of those things, there's a good chance it's emotional state is as level as it would be anywhere else it wasn't getting eaten.

Keeping gorillas in cages however, is a totally different story.

Lance · #2 01-07-2011, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I don't think that the fish we keep are swimming around in their tanks, waxing poetic for the days when they swam free on the reef. Fish have behaviours that they can and need to exhibit. If we put them in a circumstance where they are unable to exhibit those behaviours, they will probably get stressed out, but they're not going to be thinking about it. The best we can do is to try and replicate their environment as best we can, but if we can't, the fish is not going to have a complex emotional response and sulk while it thinks about what it would rather be doing. The fish we keep react to stimuli and conditioning, that's pretty much it.
If there is a problem with the environment they are in, the fish will react negatively. They will get overly aggressive, or they'll stop eating, or they'll get sick. If they're not doing any of those things, there's a good chance it's emotional state is as level as it would be anywhere else it wasn't getting eaten.

Bingo! That's what I was trying to say! Well, I did say it, just not nearly as well.

Youngster Dan · #3 01-08-2011, 04:23 AM

Asylumdown, cool posts! I have never heard of an ethogram, but sounds like you do some really interesting stuff.

Mrfish55 · #4 01-08-2011, 06:17 AM

I take it you were bored today Lance? Now I feel guilty, going to have to get a bigger tank now, thanks a lot!

PoonTang · #5 01-08-2011, 08:41 AM

...... and for his next trick Lance will have us all discuss the question "is God really there""

Skimmerking · #6 01-08-2011, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoonTang

...... and for his next trick Lance will have us all discuss the question "is God really there""

ROLMAO

globaldesigns · #7 01-08-2011, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoonTang

...... and for his next trick Lance will have us all discuss the question "is God really there""

Oh NO, don't do it....

Lance · #8 01-08-2011, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoonTang

...... and for his next trick Lance will have us all discuss the question "is God really there""

If we find him, we can ask for his opinion on this subject. And while we're at it might as well clear up the "Which came first, chicken or egg?" question.

PoonTang · #9 01-09-2011, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lance

If we find him, we can ask for his opinion on this subject. And while we're at it might as well clear up the "Which came first, chicken or egg?" question.

The egg of course, duh, doesn't every body know that?