The Blue Planet Aquarium has just updated, its biggest tank has now been re-branded as a Tank Buster display. This giant tank is full of fish that are regularly sold as juveniles in the ornamental fish trade. Sadly they are often miss sold by pet stores who don't inform the customer how big they get. These fish then quickly grow too large for the tank and either die by being too cramped, or get dumped into rivers where they usually die or they get given away IF they can find someone to take them. The Blue Planet gets at least 1 or 2 calls a week about fish that are too big. Some they are able to re home. The biggest and most impressive fish are now housed in this display. It looks great and shows how fish of this size should be kept.
It is sad to think that for every one fish in this tank so many more end up in tiny cramped tanks where they live short miserable lives. I believe the pet stores and Local Fish shops really need to take more responsibility in informing customers of the eventual size of the fish they sell.
The Blue Planet Aquarium has put up information explaining this to visitors and i hope that this may help to educate more members of the public of the importance of having the right size tank for a fish.
The Tank Busters display currently includes
- Black Pacu (After the common Plec and the Piranha this is the most commonly dumped fish in the UK)
- Ripsaw Catfish
- Vundu
- Tiger Shovelnose catfish (these are my favourite in the tank)
- Nile Perch
- Leopard catfish
- Redtail Catfish (the 2 big redtails they have in this tank are amazing)
the tank also includes a
- Geoffrey's side neck turtle (you can usually find him hidden up in the branches or sometimes scavenging for food on the tank floor)
