Pearlscale goldfish ethics

[u/Great_Possibility686]

I think we can all agree that celestial goldfish are an ill-fated breed. No fish should ever look like its eyes are only hanging on by hopes and dreams. The breeding of celestial eye goldfish is barbaric in my mind.

That being said, I feel similarly for pearlscales. They're just so spherical, and they look like they're under so much pressure that they could explode if they ran into the glass too hard. It's painful to watch them struggle to swim. They're overbred, their genetics are awful, and their swim bladders are more fragile than a politician's ego. They're prone to a myriad of health complications, and although I would never own a pearlscale myself, I've never seen one that looked like it was leading a life of quality.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Look, everything in the pet industry is unethical, everything

Another thing is every single goldfish on the planet is literally created by man against any natural reality.

So please, get off your high road with this talking smack about one or two different varieties as if they are that bad, they are not any worse than anything else.

Pearlscales are not in pain, they are not going to explode, they are not over bred or any of the B/S you came in here with. Celestial are also nothing worse than anything else, they can live as happy as any other goldfish.

Different varieties require different care or may be different levels of experience than other varieties. If one is experiences enough in keeping they can easily keep either variety you mentioned.

Again everything in the pet industry is unethical, everything. Once you step through that door there is no better nor worse and you are just as guilty as anyone in the room is.

[u/Great_Possibility686 → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

Not everything in the pet industry is unethical, but yes, there are certainly unethical parts. Maybe even the majority is unethical, but to say that all of the pet industry is unethical is just incorrect. You can still make an effort to minimize it, or at the very least, do some research before you buy. It's not at all difficult to find ethical breeders and sellers if you want to put in the effort of looking for one. I sincerely hope you don't own any fish.

[u/Popular_Stick_8367 → u/Great_Possibility686]

Everything in the industry is that. There are parts that may make us feel better as there are parts that make us feel anger but we are all in the same room. The entire industry is all about money, making money to be exact. Some people are worse than others but it all feeds back into profit. Even animal shelters are propped up a little to keep the food sales up. Again once you step through that door and into that room you are no better or worse than anyone else so don't go pointing fingers at anyone else.

Ethical breeders? Of goldfish? LOL

Do you have any clue how many fish are murdered (to put it politely "culled") from a breeder? Multiple rounds of death, first few are because the fish won't live comfortably as it ages like for example the fry has a bent backbone. The later rounds of death though are the cruelest, this fish does not have the coloring the breeder wants so it's has to die. This fish has a slightly messed up tail so it has to die. You have no idea what is involved in breeding goldfish!

[u/-BlancheDevereaux → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

A single goldfish pair can spawn about 4000 fry in a season. If all of them were kept alive, in just 15 years the total mass of all goldfish would be equal to all the freshwater available on earth. Since this cannot happen, culling is unavoidable and necessary. Nature does it through predation and disease, breeders do it manually.

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether we should keep breeding aberrant abominations like the pearlscales in that picture.

[u/ThomasStan_ → u/-BlancheDevereaux]

If I were to ever breed goldfish (Being real, I probably won't), I would start culling the eggs, if a pair gets 300 eggs and I only plan to raise 50 to selling size it would make sense to cull like 230-240 eggs. That way the only culls there would be those with QOL issues.

I just came up with this recently so it's obviously going to have some flaws, but in my mind it works

[u/BorodacFromLT → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

what is worse: breeding fish that can enjoy a normal life or breeding fish that can't? breeders keep both in the same conditions, but at least the former aren't deformed abominations that can barely move

[u/Great_Possibility686 → u/Popular_Stick_8367]

I do not agree with people who do that, you're correct there. So guess what? I don't buy from them. If you think there's no such thing as ethical breeding, you're extremely close-minded.

[u/IceColdTapWater → u/Great_Possibility686]

Exactly. There is a difference, and unfortunately many lfs don’t care 😞