# Japanese Ricefish at risk of being banned in the UK!



## Courtneybst (19 May 2022)

Are we going to have to develop code words? 🙃



			https://ornamentalfish.org/industry-warned-to-ensure-oryzias-species-must-only-be-sold-for-indoor-aquariums/


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## mrhoyo (19 May 2022)

I saw this earlier and then read your pond thread. Spooky.


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## DeepMetropolis (20 May 2022)

I understand the problem. But what is the difference between keeping them in a barrel or a tank?  Are they going to hitch hike on a bird?


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## PARAGUAY (20 May 2022)

I think that's right birds transfer them . Plenty of examples of minnows sticklebacks mysteriously appearing in wildlife ponds in gardens. Tropical fish released in factory lodges and thriving although not as common these days. As seen by a recent thread turtles in waterways obviously thriving on native fish. The effect of non native mammals effect Grey squirrel diseases effects on native Reds ,effect of Mink on Water Voles and the plants ex.Japanese Knotweed. 
          It does seem odd though Ricefish? chosen as a real threat to native environment especially when you consider the effect of our UK river waterway pollution with unacceptable amounts of effluent poured in at dangerous levels daily?by Utilities killing off far more than a Ricefish


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## Courtneybst (20 May 2022)

I do understand the risk, but I just feel that there are more imminent threats to our native waterways before ricefish are even considered, as you said @PARAGUAY 

It also seems odd that goldfish are still A-OK yet can be incredibly destructive and invasive if released into the wild. But hey ho, it's tradition right? 🙃


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## zozo (20 May 2022)

DeepMetropolis said:


> Are they going to hitch hike on a bird?



They do with swimming and wading birds, obviously not the fish but the eggs... Fish use plants as spawning mobs, ducks wiggle their toes in these plants and wading birds their legs. Eggs are sticky and stick to the bird's legs and feet. Then the birds hop from one pond to the other, to the creek, the river or the lake etc. The eggs can survive a dry period for some time Then when the birds land again in different water the eggs fall off and the package is delivered.  Insects travel the same way, microorganisms spread over the globe hitchhiking with birds and other flying/swimming insects.

It can spread vast distances like this since a lot of birds do migrate annually, for example from Africa to the pole region. In between they make pitstops and at each pitstop, a package can be delivered and picked up again. It may take a couple of seasons for a species to hop along with the birds, 30 miles per season and per stop would be 300 miles in a decade and 3000 miles in a century.  This way a species also can gradually evolve and acclimatize through regular reintroduction.

Thus actually being totally honest and realistic, all those environmentalists are one-day flies living in the moment, trying to preserve what is here in their generation(s). They are kinda mad like Don Quichotte fighting the windmill giants, thinking mother nature cannot survive without our care and interventions.
But in the end, mother nature decides and no matter "how invasively we try to keep it as is" we can't do a thing about it, the life cycle of conservatism is a drop on a hot plate.

Talking about invasive? We, humans ourselves, are actually the best example, we also started somewhere in the isolated outbacks of the planet as an exotic. And look where we are today and how we got there and what we did with our time... Worrying about invasive species??


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## shangman (20 May 2022)

To me it seems comical to worry about some ricefish in a waterlily bowl while the whole world burns. Perhaps if our government actually looked after our waterways instead of actively destroying them and allowing thousands of tonnes of literal sh*t to be chucked in it would come across as less disingenuous.


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## LondonDragon (20 May 2022)

Bit like plastic straws saga! which is responsible for about 0.02% of the plastic in the oceans! but hey that was a lot more important that fishing nets which is responsible for about 60% and no one cared or mentioned it!!


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## zozo (20 May 2022)

shangman said:


> To me it seems comical to worry about some ricefish in a waterlily bowl while the whole world burns. Perhaps if our government actually looked after our waterways instead of actively destroying them and allowing thousands of tonnes of literal sh*t to be chucked in it would come across as less disingenuous.



It's a business model that develops by studying (and understanding) etc. in all kinds of different sectors. When you for example are studying biology and environmentalism then you need a job to follow this up after graduation. Finding problems and solutions is a way of job creation...

For example, 5 decades ago I was, and many others with me, called a spirited child and for the rest, there were no issues nobody cared that much about it. After a few decades of studying (and understanding) creating norms and labels and boxes and jobs to go along with it. For children like me an ADHD stamp and a bunch of professionals to stuff them with Ritalin so they hopefully normalise again. Nowadays fart in the wrong direction and you're boxed and get a label for which we might have a pill.


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## shangman (20 May 2022)

zozo said:


> It's a business model that develops by studying (and understanding) etc. in all kinds of different sectors. When you for example are studying biology and environmentalism then you need a job to follow this up after graduation. Finding problems and solutions is a way of job creation...
> 
> For example, 5 decades ago I was, and many others with me, called a spirited child and for the rest, there were no issues nobody cared that much about it. After a few decades of studying (and understanding) creating norms and labels and boxes and jobs to go along with it. For children like me an ADHD stamp and a bunch of professionals to stuff them with Ritalin so they hopefully normalise again. Nowadays fart in the wrong direction and you're boxed and get a label for which we might have a pill.


I know what you mean, but not sure I agree with your example in this case  tangent time...

Not to pour my psyche out in a thread about ricefish, but I'm on the waitlist for ADHD diagnosis. Researching it and realising I am an ADHD person has really helped me understand who I am, why I do certain things the way I do, helped me stop blaming myself for things I can't do, recontextualises very difficult parts of my life, and helps me manage my life with all this in mind. I have had issues my whole life because of it, and I only just realised recently as they only thought to study it in girls and women in the past few years. The drugs don't "normalise" you (I'm sure they tried to make it a permanent "fix" at first but it just doesn't work lol), they just make you capable of doing boring things for a few hours in case you want a normal job. Obviously if modern life wasn't so tedious it wouldn't be a problem, but when I've got to do boring af things that I find almost impossible and painful to do, some drugs sound pretty good! Saying that, centering my life around nature would be preferable and is the direction I'm trying to go in, as I have no problems doing those things. We're natural nature lovers. 

It's one of the things I like about this hobby, there's loads of us about, we have a great time when we all hang out together, no need to hide our enthusiasm, creativity and thirst for knowledge. For fishkeeping, no drugs needed 😅


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## zozo (20 May 2022)

shangman said:


> We're natural nature lovers.



I guess we are, that's the only place in the world I can feel 100% at peace... 

I'm never diagnosed at all, tho I had to go to a special school at a very young age because they didn't know how to handle me and grab my attention. In the end, I'm glad I was at this school, back then this was the only thing they had. Special education in smaller groups with all kinds of nut cases together. Man! I had a good time!!

One of my best friends is a professional social worker he knows me for over 30 years and he assured me if I ever would apply for any diagnosis I would be diagnosed with ADHD. I don't feel I need to I learned to live with it at my own devices over the years through experience and acceptance without any kind of drugs. Now I'm too old and beyond any help anyway.

IMHO these labelled so-called out of the box kids don't have problems with the world, their problem is the world lacks communication skills and therefore has problems with them. Also, see this with one of my nephews, he's diagnosed ASS and the world around him doesn't know how they should communicate with him so they don't even try, they just don't or do it wrong. Learn how to communicate with them and you'll discover they are the most beautiful and honest people on the planet. 😘


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## Garuf (20 May 2022)

Maybe you should organise a water rates strike and withhold your payment until they stop discharging sewage and fix and invest in the infrastructure everyone needs rather than doing the whole profit siphoning. 

You know. Classic collective action, they’ll do nothing until you cost them money.


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## DeepMetropolis (21 May 2022)

zozo said:


> I guess we are, that's the only place in the world I can feel 100% at peace...
> 
> IMHO these labelled so-called out of the box kids don't have problems with the world, their problem is the world



Hmm nature is the place that straighten my mind. That's the first place I go if I have to sort things out, forests are the best places sometimes beaches are okay too.. So I can 100 % identify with wat you say. 

About the labels it's frustrating how the system works. The oldest is diagnosed with pddnos because they could not put a label on him. That wanted to try medication but we always said no. And all schools share here 'sensitive' information they always try to label the siblings for extra financial benefits, Irritating nonetheless. I never treated any of them as different and I think that is going to contribute when they grow up and need to learn to coop in the world. I don't like parents patronising their offspring like they are the weird ones..


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## Wolf6 (21 May 2022)

zozo said:


> They do with swimming and wading birds, obviously not the fish but the eggs... Fish use plants as spawning mobs, ducks wiggle their toes in these plants and wading birds their legs. Eggs are sticky and stick to the bird's legs and feet. Then the birds hop from one pond to the other, to the creek, the river or the lake etc. The eggs can survive a dry period for some time Then when the birds land again in different water the eggs fall off and the package is delivered.  Insects travel the same way, microorganisms spread over the globe hitchhiking with birds and other flying/swimming insects.
> 
> It can spread vast distances like this since a lot of birds do migrate annually, for example from Africa to the pole region. In between they make pitstops and at each pitstop, a package can be delivered and picked up again. It may take a couple of seasons for a species to hop along with the birds, 30 miles per season and per stop would be 300 miles in a decade and 3000 miles in a century.  This way a species also can gradually evolve and acclimatize through regular reintroduction.
> 
> ...


This is a bit simplistic. Natural spread could happen, but its native natural enemies would be more likely to follow in its path. Its us humans that only transport these pests to somewhere they can flourish without anything stopping them, which rarely happens in nature as there is bound to be something nearby thats already one mutation away from profiting off this. But take knotweed, odds of that landing in europe via natural routes are so slim its negligible. Saying nature will fix everything is simply releasing yourself from any perceived obligation to try and do something about it. Nature wont fix itself, not the way hippies think it does. Balancing happens by species completely taking over until something radical whipes it out or nearly out and it or species around it adapt, something thats being forced into a short time frame now, and thus cant work 'naturally'.


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## zozo (22 May 2022)

Wolf6 said:


> Its us humans that only transport these pests to somewhere they can flourish without anything stopping them, which rarely happens in nature



If you haven't noticed, afaik humans as a migratory species are part of nature too originating from and living on this planet. And when we migrate other species travel with us. Such as the Housefly, the Flea, the Carp, the Rat, the Mouse, the Cat, the Dog, the Horse, and the sheep, funny is the only place in the world the Camel still lives in the wild is Australia meanwhile in its originating area it only exists domesticated and in captivity nowadays. All that lives and migrates also migrate with potentially devastating Viruses (pox) (Bird flu) Bacteria (Syphilis) etc. An intentional or unintentional introduction is irrelevant at this point it just happens and is inevitable.

Darwins Galapagos is also a nice example... 


> Unlike birds, reptiles cannot fly to Galapagos, so all of them had to get there *by accident*. Reptiles such as snakes, tortoises and iguanas presumably were washed off of the mainland somehow clinging to floating material such as fallen trees or reeds, arriving at Galapagos after some weeks at sea.



Climates changes on this planet, the Sahara once was a jungle and is now a dessert, mother nature doesn't fix things she constantly changes things without remorse. Europe nowadays is warm enough for the Tiger Mosquito to survive and is about to become endemic, how did it get here? Who knows, might be in a crate with bananas might be with a warm gulf stream, that's not the point it's here and here to stay and probably sting you one day in the future.

The last winters are rather soft and I have flowering and seed carrying Cyperus alternifolius growing indoors. By now I find it growing and surviving, flowering and carrying seeds in my garden growing in between the cracks in the pavement. We have greenhouses and garden centres full of this plant and If the winters in Europe stop freezing enough to kill Cyperus alternifolius outdoors it will become an endemic plant sp. Inevitable is, if it does something else has to make a place. So I'm not saying mother nature is going to fix this, she simply does this there is nothing to fix for her. We are the fixers for the good and the worse, nature doesn't care, she doesn't see problems and simply goes on and is unbreakable.

So yes it is very simplistic, the way nature changes this planet is inevitable and we can only stand by and watch... Trying to stop her is a mad cause and any alleged success is only a temporary reprieve over many generations.

That is my point so I'm not advocating you should buy rice fish and carelessly dump them in the next best natural water next door.

But people are hard-headed and still do even if it's totally pointless as something like finding trash on the forest floor is the next best example.  Banning rice fish is not the solution to human stupidity and ignorance. 

Last year I gave 10 of my goldfish to a friend to put in his garden pond... 3 months later the river next door flooded his garden and also his pond... When the water receded again all the fish were gone. This small river never flooded that high in history at least it was never recorded before... Where ever these goldfish are today, they are living a happy life where they don't belong.


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## castle (22 May 2022)

In the waterway, I guess they would be direct competition with Minnows (Phoxinus phoxinus), and eat native small fry etc. At least, from as I know it waterways in UK are not super stable, and there is a lot of effort going in to protect these fish/habitats now. Another fish, eating a questionable supply of insects isn't good. You must understand there isn't a neiche these fish fill, it's more that they're likely going to be very effective and another fish loses to them, or makes an unstable system worse. 

And while there are lots of (human) threats to waterways across the UK, there has been a lot of sweeping changes in regards to farming and pollutiuon measures, sites of signification interest, restoring sandbeds/reed banks etc.  It may look like we're just pumping co2 in the air without care, but a lot of people really do care about native plants and animals, especially at the waterside. RSPB can take a lot of credit there, as waterways start to die, so do the birds.


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## mort (22 May 2022)

It's actually quite nice that there is a little future thinking for once rather than trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. I'm not sure that this species poses a massive threat but we need to be proactive about potentially problematic species of flora and fauna given the mistakes that have been made in the past and the way our world has changed.


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## not called Bob (23 May 2022)

LondonDragon said:


> Bit like plastic straws saga! which is responsible for about 0.02% of the plastic in the oceans! but hey that was a lot more important that fishing nets which is responsible for about 60% and no one cared or mentioned it!!


and then every one went out and covered their gardens in wretched plastic grass, and the micro plastics problem went bonkers


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