I'm not normally one to rant about stuff on the internet, but this has gotten me really worked up.
There is a user on YouTube - named Fiki Prima. He's got a 150 gallon FOWLR and a reef tank that looks to be about 20 gallons. Nothing out of the ordinary - at least it seems.
Let's look at the stock in his tanks.
I didn't make note of the corals in his reef tank, but the fish in there were a percula clown, a maroon clown, a talbot's damselfish, somewhere around 10 mollies, a clown triggerfish, a black dogface puffer, a regal tang, and a mustard tang. ALL IN A 20 HIGH.
It gets worse - the 150 gallon
had a blacktip reef shark, coral catshark, blue spotted ribbontail ray, clown triggerfish, undulated triggerfish, blue line triggerfish, porcupine pufferfish, tesselata eel, emperor angelfish, blueface angelfish, regal angelfish, goldflake angelfish, red sea sailfin tang, and a foxface. ALL THAT in a 150 gallon tank. It looks wider than a standard 150, but no matter what the dimensions of the tank are - those fish don't all belong in a 150. Honestly, only the regal angel, goldflake angel, and foxface should be kept in a tank that size.
Well, I say
had because he claimed that after a month everything (save for the blue spot ray and tesselata eel) died of velvet, and that he "learned his lesson". Well, clearly not - because he quickly restocked the tank with a napoleon wrasse (so he claims), vlamingi tang, shovelnose guitarfish, and his existing eel and ray.
About two weeks ago, he posted another update - he has added a brown banded bamboo shark and a crocodilefish to his tank. That is his most recent update on either tank.
I went and posted a comment on his most recent video, telling him that his tank was too small and that he needed to upgrade desperately, his response was that he is planning a new project that will be finished in February of 2017. Can't wait to see it, because those fish are going to need a MASSIVE tank when they get some more size on them. Massive by even my standards, and I'm into keeping larger sharks.
What's even worse is all of the people who are promoting this behavior on his videos. Just going through them I counted EIGHT people who complimented his tank, giving no feedback whatsoever on the overcrowding of those poor fish.
To add further insult to injury, I was called out for "being a rude person" by correcting his behavior and shaming him for it (not by him, by someone else), as well as politely telling off people who were giving him the false information that he wanted to hear.
Some suggestions that have been given to him are:
- Release your fish in the ocean, since that's where they came from
- "You're trying, that's what counts"
- It's okay, because rays bump into each other in the wild so there's no reason they can't be kept like this in captivity
Okay, enough of my ranting - why did I post this? Well, hopefully this thread blows up and we can get this guy to stop keeping fish, at least until he realizes that he should be focused on what's best for the fish, not his own personal entertainment.
It is a real shame that our hobby will be taking a hit due to this one greedy individual who wants to have every cool fish in the ocean right in his living room. It's also a shame that he managed to get a combination of fish and corals that would cost over $5,000 to put together in the United States, only to let nearly all of them die due to poor husbandry techniques.
So, if you have a minute of your time, please leave this guy a comment letting him know that what he's doing is wrong, and that he really does need to stop. I am going to look into how he got his fish, because I know that napoleon wrasses are protected in some localities, and that if he collected the fish and/or corals himself, he could be in some kind of trouble. So if anything he did was illegal, I plan to alert the authorities about it.
Sorry for my long rant, and enjoy the rest of your holiday season
Drew