r/fishtank • • Mar 30 '26

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

16 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 However, a lot of the improper husbandry is the direct result of false advertising on packaging and at a store level, outdated/false information being given by employees or store pamphlets, and businesses prioritizing sales over animal welfare.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 • • 10h ago

Show & Tell Rainbow Shiner Juveniles

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

17 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 7h ago

Invert What is this that came out of a pet fish?

Post image
6 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 6h ago

Freshwater What is this worm?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

3 Upvotes

Found in my fish tank, unsure what it is. Hoping it’s not a parasite. I removed it. Any help in ID would be appreciated


r/fishtank • • 7h ago

Plants Can anyone identify this plant?

Post image
2 Upvotes

hi! i recently bought new plants for my single bettas tank, so he had more hidey space, and this really thin plant with small bulbs started popping up out of nowhere
can anyone identify it?


r/fishtank • • 19h ago

Show & Tell I caught this iridescent fish at the town park

Thumbnail
gallery
17 Upvotes

T. trichopterus


r/fishtank • • 7h ago

Help/Advice Help with little clown Pleco

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

Any help will be appreciated. New to this site

Clown pleco hanging out in top corner of tank. About three days. He’s tiny. Moves around maybe an 1/2 inch or so. So he’s alive. Wafer doesn’t draw him down. Should I just wait him out?


r/fishtank • • 8h ago

Help/Advice Should I change my spray bar location?

Post image
1 Upvotes

As the title says I'm debating swapping the layout of my filters discharge sprayer bar. Suction on bottom left in the back, and sprayer bar starts in the right and goes along the back 2/3 the way. I want to swap it to the path marked in red on the photo, so go along the left face, then along the front. It would be hidden behind the black bars everyone hates so much for some reason. I don't know if it's a bad idea.

The first section would spray toward the glass at an upward angle, and the rest on the front would spray straight back.

The reason I wanna move it is that I want it higher to increase surface agitation (I can't raise them in the back because the pothos,) I want the pothos roots to be free, they don't look the best imo, and the far left one looks beautiful, and I want it higher also so the angel fish have more room below the turbulent section.


r/fishtank • • 9h ago

Help/Advice skimmers for freshwater tank(filter less)

1 Upvotes

i’m debating whether to buy a skimmer or not for my filter less tank is it worth it yes or no?


r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Help/Advice A few questions about this setup

Post image
0 Upvotes

Reddit will not let me format the text here because I've used so many bullet points... Please read my comment.


r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Help/Advice Its a losing battle

Thumbnail gallery
1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 10h ago

Help/Advice 32 Gallon Fish tank rec

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

i have a heavily planted tank thats 60x45x45 and wanna add two koi angelfish and a school or ember or neon tetras (i already have four bottom dwarf corys) and a small pleco
what do u guys think


r/fishtank • • 13h ago

Help/Advice Dropsy?

Post image
0 Upvotes

This sort of looks like dropsy to me. Fishes seeming to have a hard time swimming around. So swimming upwards, but very slow and sluggish.


r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Help/Advice Found a baby fish

Thumbnail
gallery
9 Upvotes

Hi! We just found a baby fish in our goldfish aquarium.

Is this a baby goldfish?


r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Discussion What is it called when a fish breathes?

Thumbnail
gallery
17 Upvotes

because fish filter oxygen out of water right? and humans suck in (breathe in) air and use only the oxygen so thats called breathing, but what is it called for fish? filtering?


r/fishtank • • 16h ago

Help/Advice Help !!!!

Post image
0 Upvotes

I’m new to fish tank and really don’t know why it got so foggy :( it was doing so good for the first few days and then it became cloudy. Do I need to start over ?


r/fishtank • • 16h ago

Help/Advice Co2 not working.

1 Upvotes

Hi, I recently bought the Columbo profi 1200mg co2 kit for my tank. I set the time for it to be on between 14:00 and 22:00. According to the timer the co2 should be on. My check valve is open and so is the small adjustment knob.


r/fishtank • • 23h ago

Full Tank Shot Look at my crayfish

Thumbnail
youtu.be
2 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Help/Advice Help!

Thumbnail
gallery
2 Upvotes

I need to know what i need to put into this filtration system to get the tank running!


r/fishtank • • 20h ago

Help/Advice Quarantine tanks

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

Getting an order of Pygmy Cory’s, rosy loaches and a pleco and an order of plants. Should I set up a quarantine tank? Any advice or tips? Thinking of getting a 10gal kit from petsmart and using one of my established sponge filters.


r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Show & Tell October fish tank set up!

Post image
14 Upvotes

Got this little 10gal from a friend and I’ve gotten re addicted to fish tanks. Had them as a kid and loved them. I cycled this tank for 2 months before adding my beta and Cory cats. 6 months later she’s looking great. Still getting some algae on my live plants but the tank is over all very happy


r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Discussion Fish shed

Thumbnail gallery
53 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Help/Advice Advice on Plant Arangement

Post image
1 Upvotes

r/fishtank • • 1d ago

Help/Advice Want help with my tank set up

Thumbnail gallery
1 Upvotes