The Diversity of Nature
Fancy guppies in a 10 gallon tank, carefully, selectively bred to look as someone wanted. Their gene inheritance is well understood by breeders who typically work to modify one change at a time – tail shape, size, pattern or dorsal fin or body coloration or pattern. So many options. As in most species of fish the male is the more attractive gender and so more desired; many stores will force you to buy a female and a male together lest they end up with many drab, unwanted fish.
These fish, like other human engineered animals such as miniature schnauzers or dairy cows, are not likely to survive in the wild for very long. Their long, flowing fins make them both highly noticeable and slow to escape. The wild type guppy is a smaller animal which can have interesting colors but not the way their fancy cousins do and they have smaller, more efficient fins. The wild type are often in pet stores unnoticed, overcrowded in a floor level tank and sold inexpensively to be used for feeding to larger predators who require live food in captivity.
The Miracle of Life
As has been repeated in so many homes over the decades, a pair of fancy, beautiful guppies of just the right color, pattern and shape has caught the eye and prompted the purchase of an inexpensive 10 gallon aquarium for them to live. Life is good for them. This pair will have a large, private space with clean water which is kept at a constant, comfortable temperature and well filtered; for a captive, human designed animal unable to survive in the wild it is doing very well for itself indeed; they are coveted. What happens next is perfectly expected – it consumes, defecates, mates and repeats. The guppy is not a fish loved for its personality but for its appearance. If one could ascertain the intelligence of a fish by merely observing it, as many aquarists seem to believe, the guppy, like most live bearing fish in the hobby trade, are thought to be quite a bit less intelligent than many of the egg laying species. Cichlids are often thought at the other end of this spectrum and seemingly possessing both intelligence and a personality. The guppies’ appetite for food and mating seems never ending and completely consuming of their time and energy.
At first, this miracle of life is fascinating to the new fish owners. They might even buy more tanks to house the offspring in or they may really get the fever and start breeding the guppies selectively themselves which requires almost ten tanks just to work on one trait. Whether one 10 gallon tank remains or more are added, what happens next is simple math – they breed and their numbers grow exponentially. The tank size is finite one way or the other – even if 100 tanks are purchased there is an end to how much space, time and electricity is available to house them.
Science
What are our carefully selected subjects to do when their biosphere becomes overpopulated and polluted? Will they be intelligent enough to control their breeding and enjoy their high quality of containment? Will natural instincts prove to be already in place in the DNA of life on earth that make them far less sexually active or perhaps less fertile when overpopulated and living in extreme pollution? Unfortunately, they simply continue to breed and multiply and make matters worse. Daily water changes could be used to combat the pollution but that would only allow even more to survive. Twice daily water changes or a bigger tank could then prolong the inevitable. More and more energy can be thrown at the problem. Better science might be discovered and better technology designed such as expensive UV filters which kill off viral and bacterial diseases in the overcrowded conditions but in the end these systems will be defeated by shear mass of fish in a finite space. The fish will suffer. They will become stunted in size and longevity, perhaps only carrying on due to their ability to reproduce at a very young age – about six weeks of age. Their quality of life is now surely very poor.
Faith
If only they could have learned to control themselves and manage their population they could have lived a long and very comfortable existence as would their limited offspring for generations to come. It would appear that the guppy is simply not intelligent enough to understand and accomplish that though. Perhaps they lack the foresight, knowledge or means of effective communication on matters philosophical. Perhaps, if they did think about it they appeased themselves by believing their self-destructive behavior was only natural after all and so would be compensated for by faith in higher powers or science saving them; perhaps they viewed the aquarist who changes their water periodically and feeds them as this higher power. Did they have faith more tanks would be employed or more money spent on technology to save them from their own filth? Faith that this higher being would simply ensure their well being as they were such precious creatures to the aquarist and, after all, are simply being what they always were?
The reality of Life
Each of these tanks will eventually cease to exist as many of the aquarists will tire of the work or expense. How many 10 gallon tanks have been sold over the decades and how many are in use today? What did those fish get from life’s experiment in the end? Some of us have answers to that either from personal experience or anecdotally from a friend. Most who survive to see the end of their 10 gallon biosphere will be taken to a pet store where, if healthy looking, they will be used as food for larger animals and if not then simply disposed of. Other times, they are more simply flushed down the one time aquarist’s commode and the empty tank given away or placed in the attic for storage. Such a beautiful animal, designed from a labor of love and science, purchased and cherished by someone well-meaning but in the end, life unchecked reaches a predictable, grotesque conclusion and the guppy is simply unable to check itself.