#misunderstood fish

[aquariuminfobureau]

The curious fish that is called the hogchoker, Trinectes maculatus, is one of the few true flatfishes or pleuronectiforms, that are encountered in the aquarium trade with any regularity. In North America, where the species is native - for it is distributed from Massachusetts down to Panama - wild caught hogchokers turn up in retailers tanks fairly regularly, where they are usually sold as 'freshwater flounders'. Elsewhere else, this species is quite an infrequent import, and those flatfish that are explicitly traded as freshwater soles or flounders, at least in Europe, are more likely to belong to truly freshwater species indigenous to tropical South America, Asia and Australasia.

None of them is imported with great regularity, but in North America, it is wild caught juvenile hogchokers that are the flatfishes most often traded as a freshwater fish. This is not entirely accurate, because although the mature hogchokers can be found far upstream, juveniles are more strictly brackish fishes in the wild, inhabiting only estuarine waters during the summer months. Hogchokers are almost always sold when they are small individuals, for which a brackish setup would be more authentic. Juvenile hogchokers actually do survive and grow in freshwater environments, but such is suboptimal for their growth rate, and this is because freshwater creates higher metabolic stresses for them. Ideally, little hogchokers should be maintained in mildly brackish aquaria, and at a temperture of perhaps 22-26 degrees centigrade, based on the summer water temperatures that wild hogchokers this size would regularly encounter in their natural habitats.

Adult hogchokers show no preferences of salinity at such temperatures, being fine at a specific gravity of 0, or freshwater, upward to 1.02. in parts of their range, wild hogchokers experience water temperatures that may be quite low during the wintertime, but rising as high as standard tropical aquariums in the summertime. When they are kept at a temperture of 15 degrees, hogchokers grow best at a specific gravity of 1.01 to 1.02. Curiously, at the warmer temperatures that wild hogchokers might encounter in the southern part of their distribution, they puts on more weight when they are living in freshwater conditions.

On average, the hogchoker grows only to about 10 centimeters or 4 inches long, although individual fishes of twice this length are recorded, reaching a length of 20 centimeters, or 8 inches. These are small flatfishes, and they take only small prey in the wild, where they consume annelids, arthropods, and molluscs. Trinectes may need acclimatising to a frozen captive diet, but this can certainly be done, and they consume suitably sized meaty morsels. It is unlikely they will adjust to eating dried rather than defrosted foodstuffs, although it is not exactly unknown

The hogchoker is common on soft, sandy bottoms where it burrows itself in classic flatfish style, and it is also rokerant of still finer grained mud or silt bottoms. Such a fine substrate should be replicated in the aquarium, because hogchokers use the substrate to conceal themselves and this makes feel safe and relaxed. Flatfishes may be bothered or even injured by fishes that bite at the substrate, or are highly active at the bottom of the water column. Naturally, as predators, hogchokers in the aquarium may themselves consume small tankmates, so cohabitants must be too large for the flounders to see as prey.

By and large, however, hogchokers are not in the least confrontational by nature, and they may be considered reasonably indifferent to the activities of other fishes, using the water overhead in the same aquarium Although hogchokers camouflage themselves well, and are not very active, this very crypsis and their fascinating, asymmetrical anatomy make them a great, quiet oddball species, for those who accept these fish have specific care needs in our home tanks

[sp0np]

Drew angelina jolie fish and the other one as girlfriends because fuck oscar.

The only reason she’s a gold digger is cuz she likes girls and angie deserves better so i’m giving her a hot girlfriend thank you for coming to my ted talk

[anzuhan]

Hey do you like the blue and purple?

like. the colors ???

sumi loves all colors and tries to utilize them all as best as possible to show the world there are no ugly colors; in fact, sumi has a story up on insta back in 2021 asking people ab what color or color combo they thought is the ugliest and sumi went on to make a couple drawings with them :)

well these are old and sumi could absolutely show their beauty more now ! but the point remains the same

sumi feels right now purple is an easy color to default to due to it being a good combo with lots and almost all of them ! so a lot more drawings end up being purpley </3 but in case of the very thing sumi is drawing has more predominant warm colors or something else, sumi does try to utilize different ones for this reason ! its not fully a matter of preference of purples and blues

sumi also doesnt have a favorite color, but if you really need an answer itd be like a chromatic pale purple to gray, like dvds ! they dont hold just one color to them, and even then their purply gray shade in general is awesome too !!

[cosmiicmiiss]

PISCES DOM/NEPTUNE DOM/ NEPTUNE CHART RULER 🌊🌙☁️

As a Pisces Rising ♓ I have been misunderstood so many times, that I literally just don't even know how to interact with the world around me anymore 🥴🌌 I have gotten into this habit of overexplaining myself just to prevent the fear of another misunderstanding. Maybe we just attract a lot of people who project onto us because of the Neptune energy or people who are just really sensitive to just about anything, because I literally feel like I'm walking on eggshells being around human beings. 😭😭 Maybe that's also just Pisces being able to "feel" the entire room because of the wide range of emotional intuition this sign has. Maybe that's why we need so much sleep☁️🌙✨

[javierduffy]

kieran and javier finding moments or even seconds of domestic bliss in canon pls

my friend i have scoured, deep sea dived, deep cleaned, poker all-inned and i have never once in my rdr2 career ever been able to find a positive interaction between them in canon. i didn’t think they even had ANY for the longest time until someone found one and its literally javier threatening kieran … which i would personally not categorize as “domestic bliss”. i think our best bet for canon content is crossing our fingers and praying that the ai for them in camp has them sit next to each other momentarily

[frogfishwastaken]

Fish are smart and social and have memories and feel pain and people calling them stupid and using that as an excuse to treat them less humanely than other animals makes me so sad :(

For context, a biologist named Culum Brown has been doing fish research for years and has found that they are simply deeply misunderstood because the way they’re adapted to their aquatic environment is different from how terrestrial animals are adapted to land environments. People just see fish doing thing and don’t understand that it’s useful for survival in the deep sea. They don’t bother to observe them enough because of preconceived biases constructed by society’s portrayal of fish and our experiences on land.

(This has connections to the Bible and the hierarchy of animals established in it as well. I don’t think we realize the extent to which Western culture and Christianity have consciously and unconsciously shaped science.)

Despite the widespread and deeply pervasive myth that fish are dumb they actually have been proven to have the ability to remember how to evade traps even years after first learning how to do it and they can observe and learn from other fish and they have cultural transmission and friendships with fish they recognize and I’m going to cry

There’s also very little concern for fish welfare, since they aren’t beloved flagship species like dolphins or whales or seals, and generally they’ve been so poorly understood that people basically think of them as having the same level of sentience as plants. That is NOT TRUE and the conditions fish are subjected to before they die are FUCKING AWFUL and nobody’s out here protesting against that when there have been so many efforts to reduce the suffering of farm animals. Nobody ever really labels a can of tuna “free range’ but they’ll label it “dolphin safe” bc we’ve always cared more about the species that are similar to us.

And! Hot take! Maybe we shouldn’t associate intelligence with value in the first place! That has historically had some pretty awful implications for how we treat other humans based on how they are perceived or presented by people in power!

All this definitely has some sociological ties and implications.

[spearxwind]

you what’s a really funny about me following you for and massively enjoying Challenger Deep?

i am Extremely Not Down with the open ocean and ocean creatures larger than a school bus. worst thing in the world to me. Bad Vibes. far too scary by far‚ i was scared

That's really valid! The truth is though that most creatures larger than a school bus won't really hurt you (on purpose at least), most creatures that can hurt you arent really larger than a school bus at all (sharks and orcas, mostly) and the grand majority of things that can hurt are usually the size of a football at most. Sperm whales however (bigger than a school bus) will kill you just with the loudness of their clicks in close proximity alone

Jokes aside though I do think it's worth learning about the ocean to find it a little less scary, the same way you can do with bugs to make them feel less scary. We fear the unknown a lot, and the ocean is very feared for this reason, so what better way to combat the fear than to learn about it? That is actually a huge part of why I try to share so much about the sea, Challenger Deep included

Yes, I do want it to be scary when necessary and bc ooooo scary sea monsters and sailor legends are cool as hell, but I don't want it to come at the cost of people fearing our ACTUAL oceans!

If you ever have the time, and ever feel like fearing the ocean a little less, I recommend maybe watching a few videos from the EV nautilus channel where they find cool creatures in the deep and excitedly talk about them! And you can see most of them literally just Chill Out at the bottom most of the time. Or even check out the really cool and educational posts by @mbari-blog where they showcase cool creatures and biomes :]

In the end the ocean isnt actually some hell dimension to fear, its just another ecosystem filled with life that's evolved differently <3

And I will refer to this very cool post I reblogged recently as proof

[misunderstoodera]

Girls day again for my daughters April and Aniyah . Seafood Shack ❤️

[thelien-art]

First i must apologize I have a tendency to forget that tumblr - even when we're all 'on' - is not live interaction and additionally you can't actually read my mind 😅

This was in reaction to seeing your ... delightful?? .. new frog. In such a state. And I got nervous 😋🦀💖

Annon... I´m gonna cry... I love you♡♡♡ you´re making me do happy jumps♡

And I understand fully what you mean about "reading minds" if you can call it that, we´re all there at times!

I hope this is you trying to get me to talk about my wonderful frog Kaj because that´s what I´m gonna do know XD

-

This is Kaj - named after my second favorite show as a child - he´s 25 cm long, and he´s a treefrog, there didn´t stand which one but my best guess is a red eyed tree frog, he just doesn't have the blue stripes, he could also be a Agalychnis moreletii (Morelet's tree frog) but he doesn't have black eyes and Morelet´s are known for their black eyes (a nickname of theirs is black eyed frog).

He could also be an American green tree frog, but his feet are a bit too pigmented, and back a bit to light for that, although the eyes would match there.

Actually he´s a woman as he has an ovary and oviduct (the blue stuff you can see below his urostyle) but I didn´t know that until I unpacked him, where I already had named him

Going with the idea he´s a Morelet (as that´s what he looks most like) he would be around 60mm (f-54 m-60/64)

Red eyed tree frog gets around 6/7 cm (f-7,5 m-5)

All in conclusion he´s a tree frog. Which kind of one? Karl.

And no, the crabs need not fear, he´s much too small to be of any danger in the wild, and my Kaj is made of plastic so he doesn't really jump or eat, unfortunately.

Although some crabs might want to watch out for the Goliath frog... (world's biggest frog at around 32 cm and 3.3 kilograms)

[desultorydenouement]

listen. bad people can make good art. do you really read classic books and just listen to what they’re trying to tell you? that’s not what art is about! art is about what they’re not trying to say! art is a porthole into other people’s worlds! it’s a camera into other people’s minds! it’s how they see the world! navigate their lives! and if they’re bad people, and their view of the world inevitably fucked up, READ IT ANYWAY, and see how all their hatreds and fears and selfishness taint the way they view the world, and learn it. see the way it slants. and next time you look at the world around you and find it leaning just a little bit further into hatred and despair and bigotry, you will know enough about perspective to keep yours steady.

[aquariuminfobureau]

Today I was aware someone had imported a cobitid they were trading as a moosefaced loach. The species in question is more traditionally called the gongota loach, Canthophrys or Somileptes gongota, from shallow and slow-moving streams in northern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Reports of its natural presence in the state of Orissa, in eastern India, seem to be false. This species is best documented from piedmontane hill streams. They can also be called a moosehead, or even a jaguar loach.

This species grows to about 13 centimeters, or 5 inches, and is thus a nice size for many home tanks. It is considered quite an uncommon loach in its range, and the extent of its natural distribution is disputed among ichthyologists. Gongota loaches have a reputation among aquarists, as a very difficult species to maintain alive. However a minority of loach keepers have reported that this species, when it's needs are provided for correctly, can be undemanding.

According to the literature, mooseface or gongota loaches are reportedly present indiscriminately on muddy, sandy, and gravelly bottoms in the wild, although they are of benthic habits as would be expected of a loach species. However these loaches definitely feed by sifting through fine substrates, and thus they require a sand substrate in order for them to behave safely and normally. When they are in our aquariums, they definitely fare far better when they have access to fine silver sand substrates, which facilitate certain of their natural behaviors.

These include their habit of self-concealment by burrowing activities, and for this reason their eyes are positioned quite dorsally and elevated. Such a configuration of the face allows them to spy above the level of the sand, whilst they are otherwise buried safely out of the view of predators. Decor is therefore not essential to them as hiding places, as long as they can burrow into the sand to hide, which is exactly as they would do when in the wild. These are a very demersal fish indeed.

Some aquarium literature claims that this species requires cooler water, for example a temperature of 18 to 22 or 16 to 24 degrees centigrade Such matches recommendations and norms for sympatric species, as the small carps Danio rerio and Pethia ticto. However its natural range extends a bit further south than some people seem to assume, and it appears not to be strictly a piedmontane fish, as some people maintain.

With this species, perhaps, their location of origin should be used to determine the proper temperature for these fishes, if this may be possible. In fact in southern parts of their range, the temperature of the water averages at 25 to 26 degrees centigrade, and seasonally may drop closer to 20, ànd rise nearer to 30 degrees. In these waters, which are always flowing but not too powerfully, the pH is between 7 and 8, and thus circumneutral whilst leaning towards the alkaline side. This is contrary to some online opinion, that this species requires very soft and acidic water.

The feeding habits of gongota loaches are to sift morsels such as insect larvae from a fine substrate, expelling the non-food ingesta via their gills and retaining edible particles for digestion. Therefore the most appropriate diet for these fish, would be small, defrosted foods of suitable nature, or sinking dry foods if they will accept them. Although newly imported gongata loaches have a reputation for being difficult to feed, and generally for dying after importation, they can fortunately adapt to eating dry preparations.

With their own species, gongota loaches gregarious, and they are properly housed together in groups. Although they are very tolerant and peaceful by nature, their feeding habits can complicate their care in the ordinary community tank. This is because many other fishes are eager to snatch the same first of food items, that the gongota loach needs to eat, and their nature is to feed only at the bottom of the aquarium. More active fishes that are present in the same aquarium as gongota loaches, might eat the available food before the nocturnal sifters can access it.

Otherwise feeding these loaches is unproblematic, assuming that they have already been acclimatized - provided that the food particles they are offered are sufficiently small in size. They can even take to eating flakes once they have become waterlogged and sunk to the substrate. Gongota loaches seem to be a fish that perishes too often through the importation process, but are not in principle difficult, as long as certain special needs they have, are anticipated and provided for.

[cream-stew]

hi hi, this is the anon who sent the diluc/zhongli threesome request :3 thank you so much for writing it, you did it wonderfully! (as always) 🩵

thank you for the feedback I'm very glad you liked it <3 <3

[rossithepixie]

I cant stand it when other people who are into fish take on a mocking tone when i talk about goldfish keeping. Especially when it’s immediately evident they don’t actually know anything about it.

[legitimate-salvage]

this is not a callout post, because I absolutely agree with you. 'What defines a monster' is a very interesting question with a *lot* of nuance and maybe I should explain where I was coming from.

You can very much have a monster where their *actions* are the thing thats monstrous. vampires famously fall into this category, brutal killers who are, especially in modern mythos, conventionally beautiful and beautiful on purpose as a way to lure people in. I would consider them monsters absolutely. A demon's draw is that they're a demon, right? that could mean tiefling, sure, and they're monsters, yes. but if you tell me you have a creature from the pits of hell that's supposed to be all of my nightmares, I don't want to see matt from the cubical across from me in ren fair paint. that is not scary.

and that's my real issue with the whole thing!!! and I know my original post is a little Superior-than-thou in tone, but its just that in a lot of the monster romance stories i try to read, the selling point is that theres this creature that everyone is *so* afraid of that no one can look them in the eyes without it breaking their mind, and instead of the eldritch horror that it advertises, it's described really as b-film movie make up. they could be on vogue sort of thing. Don't tell me you have a terrifying monster and then it's some guy. (or, even worse, and completely unrelated, they actually *are* a terrifying monster but then turn human at the end. I could go on for a dissertation amount of writing about queer themes in monster horror and horror in general and how a lot of stories start off as the 'im seen as a monster too' and ends up being heterosexual 'i can fix him' shit. i actually did write a paper on patriarchal overtones in 'i can fix him' fiction for class, i can and will discuss it, it's so depressing.)

i dont have issue with people's varying levels of monster. it's more about false advertising and reoccurring disappointment every time i pick up a new book. the 'what if they were.....,.,.,.,, a monster!!!1!111!!!' and then there's no actual carry through in either how they look or how they behave. and like, if that's really as far as you go, that's alright! but don't tell me people have killed themselves after meeting with this monster and then its looks like a model. with fangs. and a heart of gold. I think you're afraid of your predilections actually and you should kill the evangelical thought cop that lives in your head. be free. fuck a crt monitor

I’m at my wits fucking end

[tech-suppornt]

[ooglywooglies]

so i found out yesterday that a korean cat channel i watch on youtube nearly got doxxed and had his cats lives threatened awhile ago because he made a really light joke at mens expense and people thought he was a male feminist, koreas antifeminism goes fucking CRAZY dude