What Are the Benefits of Keeping Fish? - Flux Magazine

Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:17 AM PDT

words Al Woods

Fish are one of the most popular pets in North America. The NPOS (National Pet Owners Survey) for 2017-18 revealed that up to 68% of North American household's own pets, or a single pet.

Another survey conducted by the APPA (American Pet Products Association) discovered that up to 2.5 million North American households keep saltwater fish, and an astronomical 12.5 million keep freshwater fish. Similar surveys have revealed that there were well over 139.3 million fish owned as pets, compared to 95 million cats, and 90 million dogs, meaning fish account for the largest percentage of pets in North America.

This page will seek to tell you why so many people keep fish as pets, and what the many benefits of keeping fish as pets are.

You Have Creative License

Fish are very easy pets to keep, all you need to purchase is a simple tank and some equipment and you are ready to go. The professionals from AquariumStoreDepot.com say that the best part of owning a tank is not buying it but is putting your own personal touch on it. You can design your fish tank to look however you want and can rest knowing your fish will not destroy it.

With other pets, however, this is not the case. Cats and dogs will destroy anything that gets in their way. They will destroy your chairs, your furniture, your carpet, and anything you put around the house that is aesthetically pleasing. With your fish, however, you are free to turn your aquarium into anything you desire.

Aquarium's give you the opportunity to become artistic. Aquariums are not just glass tanks, but rather showpieces and they can be very beautiful. Owning a fish means having creative license over your own personal art installation.

Health Benefits and Stress Reduction

Owning fish can show a reduction in negative health conditions and improve overall well being. Having your own fish tank can reduce your blood pressure, heart rate, improve your cognitive function, and improve appetite in Alzheimer's patients. Owning fish can also reduce your stress levels.

Studies undertaken in the 1980s revealed that patients who suffered from anxiety saw a reduction in symptoms of up to 10% when they owned a fish tank. Fish can be very soothing and therapeutic. If you have been suffering from anxiety or stress, then you should consider investing in a fish tank.

They Make No Noise

Fish are brilliant because they make no noise. With other pets, it is not uncommon for them to tear around all night and keep us awake. Fish make no noise at all and you will not even know they are there. Some tanks can make a bit of noise, but there are ways around this if you buy the more expensive ones.

If you do not want to have trouble sleeping for the next however many years of your life, then consider investing in a fish tank, as opposed to getting any other pet. The lights of your fish tank will likely have to remain on overnight, so be sure to put the tank in another room if lights keep you awake.

They Are Cheap

Fish ownership is very, very cheap. Compared to a dog, which you would be paying on average $1,200 a year for, a fish can cost just $200 a year to keep. Their equipment is very cheap, and the fish themselves also, providing they are not exotic fish. The larger the tank and the more exotic the fish, the higher the price will be. But, for an ordinary freshwater or saltwater fish, you can expect to pay around $20.

They Do Not Require Much Room

Fish are very easy to keep and do not require much room. You can put them on top of a chest of drawers or a table. They are hardly noticeable. Fish are very space conservative and mean you have more room to do things you want to do in your home and for other items of furniture. With a dog or a cat, their toys and beds would be lying all over the place and clutter up your home. With fish, this is not the case, and they require hardly any room at all.

They Are a Learning Experience

Fish are a learning experience. You can learn about their habits, different species, and the way that aquatic animals live. If you want an educational pet, then fish are for you, and you should seriously consider getting some. Fish are a truly awesome pet.

Now you know a few of the benefits from keeping fish, you probably want to go out and get some, don't you? It isn't surprising, they are pretty cool. If you have been thinking about getting a small, inexpensive, and space-friendly pet, then a fish could well be for you.

Will Your Next Salmon Come from a Massive Land Tank in Florida? - POLITICO

Posted: 14 Jul 2020 08:50 AM PDT

My trip to the Bluehouse was the first time I worked outside my house since the start of the pandemic. Since I live in Miami, it was also the first time I wore long pants since the start of the pandemic. I drove south down the Florida Turnpike to this rural community at the gateway to the Keys, passed a bunch of nurseries growing palms, ficus trees and ornamental plants for Miami-area homeowners, and headed down a dusty road to a frenetic Miami-style construction site where workers were finishing the roof on that imposing white 390,000-square-foot building. Security officers took my temperature, made sure I had a mask, and led me to a trailer where Prado, the chief financial officer, greeted me at the door.

"It's coming together!" he said. "We're building the future of protein."

The coronavirus has wreaked havoc on every global company's logistics; the Chilean experts who were supposed to help Atlantic Sapphire install its fileting machines can't fly to Florida, so the company is trying to follow their instructions over Zoom. But Prado showed me how the pandemic has also accelerated the company's plans for a "vertically integrated value chain," corporate-speak for trying to do everything at the Bluehouse campus. There will be a breeding facility to try to improve the growth, health and even taste of the salmon through better genetics, an aquatic version of a stud farm for racehorses. There will be a factory to process discarded bones, heads and guts into omega-3 fish oil pills, pet-food additives and other zero-waste products. The company also plans to build an oxygen plant, manufacture biodegradable packaging materials, and convert its fish poop into fertilizer or biogas on site.

Atlantic Sapphire's leaders were already obsessed with biosecurity before Covid-19, because they've seen in Denmark how one wayward germ can paralyze production. But they believe the pandemic has heightened consumer concern about where food comes from and how many hands touch it, enhancing the business case for salmon that spend their entire lives under one roof and a supply chain that minimizes exposure to the outside world.

"We were thinking about doing all this stuff anyway, but Covid has made the rationale so much stronger," Prado told me. "It's made the rationale for everything we do stronger, because ever kilo of fish we make here is a kilo that doesn't have to be flown in from overseas."

Prado then took me to visit the Bluehouse, which from the outside looked like a warehouse and smelled like, well, a farm; its well-fed fish already generate nine tons of sludge every day, which gets separated from the wastewater and, for now, trucked off the campus. Inside, it's dominated by a few dozen concrete tanks, connected by more than 60 miles of pipes—and remember, it's only about 5 percent complete. The first half-million eggs went into the water in November 2018, and as the fish have grown from tadpole-like hatchlings to tiny fry to anchovy-like juveniles to silvery smolts and finally to adults, they've moved into gradually larger tanks, while construction workers have scrambled to finish each section of the plant in time for their arrival. They're now rushing to build the processing facility, where mature salmon will arrive through a pipe from the massive grow-out tanks, then be photographed, stunned, gutted, fileted, graded for quality and loaded onto trucks within a couple of hours.

The fish basically swim around all day in circles against an artificial current. While they seem to be crammed together even closer than feedlot cattle, Andreassen says they like swimming in schools—and that you can tell from their ravenous appetites that they're enjoying their South Florida lifestyle. I saw hundreds of juveniles in one tank the size of an above-ground swimming pool lined up directly below a horizontal bar that dispenses their feed, as if they were queuing in a cafeteria. I then watched them swarm to the surface in unison as the feed hit the water.

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