Here’s a video to make you cringe. The aquarium above is just a wee bit overstocked. It looks to be between three and four feet long and has at least 40 fish in it. And these aren’t a bunch of little fish either. Almost every fish in the aquarium is capable of growing to a foot or more in length, with most of them being angelfish, tangs, or butterflyfish. I think at one point I even saw an adult Clarion angel, which aren’t cheap.
I’m actually surprised to see this video, but I do expect this behavior from a few hobbyists, at least on some level. It’s very disheartening to say the least. A couple of years ago, a local aquarist and avid fish collector crammed 13 tangs into a standard 75-gallon aquarium. I never heard a straight answer as to why all those tangs were in such a small aquarium, which didn’t matter after they all died in a massive tank crash shortly after I heard about the overpopulation.
