NEVER release an aquarium fish into the wild.

[Robbwilder]

I was at Big Al's in south florida and noticed in one of the tanks 2 huge pacu. Probably 18" diameter price ... $14.99

Atleast they took them in .. Atleast the owner brought them back instead of releasing them into the wild...

But its sad

 

[broligt]

after take care the fish for many year throw your fish to the wild is a heartless action. remember fish will feel homeless too.

 

[yoganathan_kn]

i live in south india.
here we see pictures of large sized [upto 2.5kg ]plecos
which are reported caught in our rivers. these fidhes are thrown by the
aquarium stores and hobbyists when they reach unmanageable size.
this is a nasty habit. it is best to kill them

 

[skyhigh]

It's the worst ever that people can be so ignorant and insensitve! all people that do that should be caught and sentenced to a min of 5 years in prison! Hmpf!

 

[fishcheerleader]

too many pages of thread in this discussion, so didn't read it. As someone who is routinely asked to take "monster" fish off peoples' hands, I would like to say that educating dealers is the way to go. Or maybe dealers should take back the fish that are too large for people to keep long term and they can euthanize it.

 

[Terry.O]

Interesting story about this post. My aunt bought 10 goldfish for her grandson, they were going to place them in a 20 gallon tank.....
someone told them that was too small of a tank for that many fish. She then decided it would be a "good" idea to put them into the pond in her backyard. Not a small manmade pond with a little fountain, it was a natural wetland marsh that caught all the runoff from the surrounding areas. Well needless to say the next summer the pond was full of goldfish bigger than 1#, and all the nieghboors had goldfish in their wetland areas too. Had to call in the state DNR to posion them out, and she got a hefty fine....Needless to say NEVER release non-native species into the wild.

 

[Jamee]

So unfortunate that anyone would do this. As a nature enthusiast, one knows that feril populations are responsible for MUCH suffering by native species, not only to their environment but also their young, their food source, and their space!!

 

[Lantz]

A guy caught a 2' pacu in Lake Guntersville Alabama a few years ago! no one knew what it was at first.

 

[MaverickG13]

Try looking at the pond near my house. Its for my neighborhood and it started off as a quarry but eventually Rainwater filled it up. That pond is FULL of non-native species. Flowerhorns, Snakeheads (well they are native here anyways), A couple Red Tails here and there, and a whole bunch of Koi. Once in a while you will see an Arapaima. I also saw a corpse of a Tambaqui floating in it once. It would be a problem but its not because the closest clean body of water is about 2 kilometers (aka 1.3 miles) away.

Even the snakeheads and walking cats and climbing perches wont even bother to leave. Well its actually more of a park pond if anything.... around 1000 meters in circumference with a waterfall/fountain in the middle.

 

[~ocean]

whoa... totally agree

I heard of some guy releasing a cowfish into the ocean... poor fish