Fish suddenly eats tankmate

It looked like hamster A killed hamster B to get at all the food pellets B had been hogging and storing in his cheek pouches. So not so much opportunictic carnivore as pissed off murderous herbivore.

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Oh, they most certainly will!

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One fish eating the another fish isn’t animal cruelty. Putting fish in a tank that is too small for them with nothing of interest in an attempt to get one fish to eat another is. Think of it this way, if two dogs happen get in a fight a dog park, that is just dogs being dogs. If, however, you starve and beat the dogs and then put them in a small pit, that is dog fighting and a crime.

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it just gets deeper

In my experience, it’s usually City Kids trying to reconcile their curated animal experiences (zoos, petting farms, the 'I once met a guy who met a farmer’ syndrome) trying to understand behavior that isn’t well-known outside of those people (Farm Kids) who had continual and relentless exposure to the actual real-world behavior of animals.

You can give the animals the most ideal conditions, but some animals are just dicks.

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Not exactly a fair parallel to the city kid/country kid scenario, as what we have here is two animals in far too small a cage for the express purpose of having one eat the other recorded on video for other people to vicariously enjoy.

edited when I hit return too early –
Not sure where the value judgment of dick comes into play here. Being a dick implies doing something in order to enjoy the suffering of another. AFAIK it’s mostly people who do this. Animals don’t tend to make value judgments.

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I didn’t know Wikipedia had a “charismatic megafauna” entry - thanks!

We used that phrase all the time back when I worked for a natural history thinktank. :slight_smile:

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(raises hand) It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even watch award winning nature programming any more. I realize that animals have to eat to survive and all that, but it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy watching it.

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The way God’s intentions are usually presented, there’s a little bit of room to run, and something to hide behind. This has more of a cock-fight vibe.

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I disagree on cruelty as I am willing to bet he put the large goldfish in there specifically to feed to the gulper cat.

It’s no more cruel than putting a mouse in a snake’s tank.

While the tank itself is definitely too small for the cat as a standard home (and particularly barren), it is possible this was a holding tank and not a permanent residence. It may have been isolated while being treated for any number of issues or just here while a new home is being prepared.

Just a thought as to what may be going on.

(for clarification, my father was a fish breeder for 30 years. Our entire basement was around 50 various tanks for breeding cichlids, tetras, and various other tropical fishes. We also have 4 house tanks)

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image

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I should tell my dad to branch out. He has been breeding fancy guppies for years, but I think he just sold one of his larger tanks as it’s harder to find buyers for them.

I remember the first time my guppies had babies. You have to catch them and put them in a floating butter dish so they parents don’t eat some of them.

I still toy with getting more fish. Maybe when I move again. I loved my cooliloach (sp). I did make the mistake of getting two oscars and one of them beat up and killed the other one. Doh.

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Oscars will do that. My dad had one that was super old and when he put his hand to the water would swim up and run its back along his hand back and forth. Smart as anything those can be.

I have a small 20g tall tank that I keep just tetras and barbs in with a couple cory cats. It’s pretty and simple and easy to maintain.

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Yeah I don’t know. First of all lest anyone start assuming I’m squeamish let me say that my experience raising fish exists because I was breeding them to feed my snake, so animals eating live animals isn’t something that just makes my sweet little heart flutter. However, that tank is abysmal and two large fish… one of them a gulper. Honestly I don’t care that a fish at another fish, but it is a shitty irresponsible way to take care of an animal. Meh… the weird thing is that since I don’t know why the hell he put those fish in there I don’t even know if it’s temporary, or if one of them getting eaten was for amusement, for food, just ignorance, but at any rate the setup is still pretty shitty and it’s just plain hard for me to enjoy watching people do a shit job at something :confused:

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This is excellent orientation material for potential roommates/office mates.

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May I just say that anyone squeamish about live animals being eaten or animals being in not so great conditions might look into footage of slaughter houses where we and our pets get our somehow more friendly(?) already dead animals to eat from… (and why not watch that?) what’s the big difference by the way between being eaten alive and being killed (alive) and then eaten anyway.

I am a vegan but I have to say, at least some carnivores/herbivores are consistent. I never really understand people who are like “It’s ok as long as I don’t see it happening, but otherwise no.” (I.E. in a slaughterhouse.)

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Pretty sure someone should say "Title of your sex-tape"™ right there, but I’m on a break, so…

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I would freak out too if a hamster eats my housemate!

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Yeah I didn’t when I got them. I got them a pair to be “buddies”. :confused: I remember having a handful of Neon Tetras as they are school fish, a sucker catfish, my cooliloach (who I later gave to my dad and lived a long ass time), the two then one oscar, I think one of those black “sharks” with the red tails, and maybe a Platy or two?

My dad now has his pond in the back yard with gold fish. His main tank with a bunch of different things upstairs - like a 20 gal.

He had two 55 gal tanks down stairs with fancy guppies and platys, and out side he had a 500 gal herbicide tank cut in half that used to have - I forget what he had in there.

Dude goes fishing nearly every day for a little bit, as the local lake is 5 min 3 min away. He likes fish.

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Of course you are.

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