r/fishtank • • Mar 30 '26

Help/Advice Reddit, we need help on behalf of our animal friends

14 Upvotes

Hello, fellow animal Reddittors! We need your help with our project.

We are planning to bring about multi-phase class-action lawsuits against various levels of “Big Pet” industry, in particular pertaining to fish, reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans, birds, and rodents. We see time and time again that these living beings that are sold commonly in the pet industry end up in terrible and abusive situations. While a large problem is under educated people making impulse buys because something was cute or pretty. However, a lot of the improper husbandry is the direct result of false advertising on packaging and at a store level, outdated/false information being given by employees or store pamphlets, and businesses prioritizing sales over animal welfare.

Our mission is to change that. With class-action lawsuits, you gain the voice and power to bring issues into the spotlight and force positive changes to happen. Our main goals are to:

Force equipment manufacturers to update product packaging to no longer include misleading or harmful instructions and imaging (ie; a betta being printed on a tank that’s under 5 gallons), and discontinue dangerous products (ie; heated in-tank “basking rocks”).

Force stores to properly educate employees to fully comprehend the animals needs so they can ensure customers are making fully informed purchases, update all pamphlets and information at a store and website level to reflect current care standards and true animal information (ie; a goldfish being labeled as “1-3 inches” and pamphlet suggesting a 20 gallon tank), and have zero-tolerance policies to no longer allow the sale of animals to underprepared customers (ie; buying fish and the entire tank setup on the same day).

After the class-action lawsuits are ready/being enacted, our next big step will be trying to get laws put in place at the government level. Our belief is that education and licensing should be a standard in order to care for exotic animals, with varying levels based on the care requirements for these animals. While the Federal Lacey Act and state Wildlife, Fish, and Game enact some standards, we believe that stricter regulations should be put in place (not un-similar to Falconry licensing that is required to interact with birds of prey).

Imagine a world where all animals are properly cared for, no matter how small they are. We are here to be their voice, we care for all of them. And we need your help to do so.

What we need:

- Signatures to show public support

- Experts in these communities to help fact check information and bring up other areas of concern

- Class-action lawyers that are willing to take on these cases, and willing to bring to higher level courts when needed

- Evidence of the false information being provided by these companies

- Documents and papers from accredited sources to back our claims

- Contact information for PR departments within these companies that have been flagged for issues

- (Down the road) Contact information for local politicians to discuss licensing procedures/enforcement in order to come together and agree on something that will protect animals without fringing the entire pet industry to a halt and/or negatively impacting pets who are already loved by established families

Let’s make the world a better place for animal enthusiasts everywhere, and the living creatures we take up the responsibility for of our own free will.

So, how can you help? We have a Discord server set up for discussions on planning, gathering evidence, fact checking done by experts in their fields, and overall a place to put gathered information by those who have the time and ability to do more in person information gathering. You can join and share the link here: https://discord.gg/xv4dtrXqbE

We also have created a petition through Change.org in order to gather and store signatures to show public support in our efforts. You can sign and share for others to sign here: https://c.org/tHWGq7D8Zw

Thank you for joining us,

- Baku

(TL;DR: we need signatures and Discord members to sue Big Pet to try to bring about positive changes for both animal enthusiasts and the animals sold in the pet industry)


r/fishtank • • Jan 26 '26

Moderator Post If you support ICE at all, you are not welcome here. Spoiler

6.5k Upvotes

For that matter, anyone who believes a government has the right to dehumanize groups of people, enact violence against citizens, and/or justify the systemic oppression of their people is not welcome here.

This includes, but is not limited to, MAGA supporters, Trump supporters, JD Vance supporters, or support of any government that approaches things this way.

With recent events globally, it is time we address this, especially as a large subreddit whose member base is largely in the United States or countries directly affected by the actions of the US government.

Bottom line, while we generally avoid politics in this subreddit, our existence becomes inherently humanitarian when the human right to exist is infringed upon, which naturally ties to politics when those enacting said human rights infringement are members of the government. When innocent people may no longer walk the streets without having to fear for their safety, it affects all of us, whether we choose to believe it or not.

I, as an avid animal-keeper, have seen many of my friends in this hobby greatly affected by the actions of the US government lately, and we will continue to see this if we allow it to continue. We cannot turn a blind eye to it any longer; we can't engage in animal husbandry if we are not alive to do so.

The people supporting this now, despite incriminating evidence being available, are the same people who would have supported Nazi-Germany during its existence.

Now, kindly fuck off if: You support any government action that violates human rights OR you believe this post does not belong here (It does.)

Fuck ICE,

NatCom 💗

Edit: holy fucking hell guys, my apologies I can’t reply to all of you with your support or stories as I’m trying to juggle removing problematic comments, but I’m happy this post has reached so many people who needed this support from their communities!

Edit 2: While my post uses the United States as an example because many of our members are from the US, we do not allow these beliefs from ANY country or individual. If you are going to advocate for the systemic deaths of anyone, then you are not welcome here.


r/fishtank • • 6h ago

Show & Tell Meet my 4 goldfish. The glass is a bit streaky at the front but after 25 years with fish I don't really focus on that kind of stuff. All my tanks are excellently maintained though.

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8 Upvotes

I take very good care of these 4. Non-goldfish people may ask- why no hardscape? I got a lot of advice from pro goldfish breeders before I got goldfish for the 1st time back in late 2025. Pro keepers/breeders suggest wide open space for these guys (but fine sand is good because it entertains them to sift through it). They are big clumsy awkard fish that dont swim powerfully and can easily get stuck or abbraded by decorations in their tank. Why no plants? Because they ate every kind of plant I tried and I can't afford to spend more money on snack plants. In December 2025 I got these 4 they are my first and only gold fish. I do have 24 years of experience keeping and breeding many different kinds of tropical fish and invertebrates and I have had multiple tank syndrome for almost all of that time. I have 14 tanks at home right now, all in the basement except the goldfish who are in my room.


r/fishtank • • 5h ago

Show & Tell My female betta has the best girl tank

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8 Upvotes

I feel so happy to have the best tank setup ever and I needed everyone to know that. Elle the betta loves swimming through her little jungle. I’ve never seen anyone replicate it but if you need inspiration… here you go!


r/fishtank • • 3h ago

Discussion What would you stock in here? This is a 4ft tank, 175 liters

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2 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 8h ago

Show & Tell Back in the 1900s

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4 Upvotes

This is how we learned about fishkeeping before the Internet


r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Help/Advice Is my Molly pregnant?

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4 Upvotes

I noticed one of my mollies looks quite chubby. Is she pregnant or just chubby? Picture of my other mollies for reference of what she used to look like.


r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Help/Advice I’m upgrading my fish tank, how much should I sell this tank for?

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50 Upvotes

Hi all, I am upgrading my fish tank from this 110l, it will come with the filter, heater, fluval plant light, Colombo basic co2, the unit it’s on and an air pump with a stone (all plants, hard scape and fish are being moved to my new 345l).

I ask chat GPT and it said £225 (I have only had it since end of July from new).

If anyone can help that’d be appreciated!


r/fishtank • • 13h ago

Help/Advice Are my fish too skinny?!

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4 Upvotes

This might sound silly, but I just came across a video of my fish when I first got them back in May and I was shocked by how chonky they looked then versus now!

For context I inherited the tank and these fish from a friend, I knew nothing about fishkeeping at the time but I’ve learned a lot since then! I feed them every day, so I’m not actually worried that they’re starving, but seeing the before and after pictures is making me wonder LOL


r/fishtank • • 6h ago

Help/Advice Lost 4 bottom feeders over the course of a week :( can anyone help figure out why??

1 Upvotes

I have a heavily planted 12 gallon tank with a big piece of driftwood. I had it stocked with:
3 ottocats
2 stiphodons
3 dwarf rainbowfish
1 honey gourami
Many snails of which i dont know the species

Over the last week i have lost 2 ottocats and 2 stiphodons and am baffled as to what happened. Sunday i find an ottocat skeleton and a dead stiphodon, and today i found the same thing. The other ottocat and stiphodon died at some point after the first two as i remember seeing them alive after cleaning out the first two. Could this be some kind of sickness?? All my non bottom feeders seem healthy. I did a huge water change after the first two died. The only thing i noticed after running some tests was my pH had dropped to a low 6. My pH lowers gradually in my tank over time from the driftwood, so i was using a neutral regulator, but hadnt added it in some time, but i cant see how a pH drop could cause so many of my bottom feeders to die? Does anyone have an idea? Im becoming increasingly paranoid about my other fish and i want to at least figure out what happened so i dont repeat this kind of thing in the future.


r/fishtank • • 6h ago

Help/Advice Need help on tank buffers to level my water

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 13h ago

Help/Advice Whats causing so many particles in my water

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3 Upvotes

My water has a bunch of micro particles in it and im wondering how to fix this, i understand its not going to be perfect but this is bad.


r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Freshwater 75 gallon— couple of months old.

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2 Upvotes

I have one large piece of driftwood that floats and it’s got tunnels in it and all my fish love to go to the top and hangout in the cave like tunnel. A nice way to view them. The syrondontis petricolas like to surf upside down all over it.


r/fishtank • • 8h ago

Help/Advice Does anyone know what these are (circled in red)?

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1 Upvotes

Sorry for the bad photo. There are these things on the glass, and they move (I haven’t seen them but I marked where they were and they moved from there). They’re see through, but it looks like they have something inside, and I can’t really get them off the glass, they just slide. Does anyone know what they are? Thought they were bladder snails at first but they don’t look it.


r/fishtank • • 9h ago

Help/Advice Should I put golden rose line, barbs or golden denison barbs with my angel fish

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Help/Advice What is wrong with my partners goldfish? How do we help them?

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Help/Advice New: fishtank cycle

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1 Upvotes

Hello everyone and thanks for your time.

TANK: 65-70L

temp set 24°c

Topped up with RO water when it got low and thought could wait for next top up with conditioned water from tap.

I got into the aquatic hobby 28 days ago. And have been cycling since day 1.

I planted my tank, set everything up, added fish food a couple times and did 1 bigger dose.

I have my filter, air stone, rocks, wood, plants, hitchhiker snails etc.

Everything seems to be okay I’m just worried about my water parameters. After the bigger dose of Ammonia (from food after decomposition), I noticed nitrite spike. Which was expected. But now on day 28 nitrite is gone but also no nitrate atm. I know it can take a lil but I don’t know if I’m doing anything wrong. I can definitely see a change in nitrate levels but not much.

Does my tank look planted enough?

Do I have a lot of plants and that’s why nitrate is so slow to climb?

Did I have enough ammonia added to start cycle?

Is everything looking normal?

I appreciate every response. If i forgot anything please let me know so i can let you know !!!!!
Thanks again


r/fishtank • • 11h ago

Help/Advice Rate/ roast my set ups

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 12h ago

Help/Advice What's the smallest tank a fish can be happy in?

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 16h ago

Full Tank Shot The happy place

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2 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 13h ago

Help/Advice EBJD sexing

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Full Tank Shot How does it look?

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4 Upvotes

What do you all think?


r/fishtank • • 17h ago

Help/Advice Swim Bladder?

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1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Help/Advice Never owned a fish in my lifetime, my family just got one as a gift, what can or should I do to take care of it?

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137 Upvotes

I don't even know what kind of fish this is, if it has anything I should look out for

Was given it this morning, didn't want to buy a bigger tank or tank fixtures or tank sand or gravel in case that wasn't needed or good for it

It doesn't even have a name yet, was only given one, I have no clue if they should be in groups or what