Anyone else been watching My House Rules?

[Baccus]

Just wondering if anyone else has been watching My House Rules and saw the episode with the clues for how to make over the gardens at the houses? I was disgusted when I saw the house for I think Sydney where the show organisers had put the hint of two live fantailed bubble eyed goldfish in a small bowl in a box, in other words telling the contestants to make a pond to house the goldfish.

 

What annoyed me the most was the fact that they used a fancy type goldfish that does not survive well in outdoor ponds, that they put them in a bowl for the week with no filteration (and definantly no matured media to help with the goldfish waste that will be produced in spades) and that by the end of the day of filming where the contestants had taken the goldfish back to the hotel they are staying in and the water was already cloudy and most likely getting toxic.

 

The contestants then purchased the shallowest troughs imaginable to make into ponds and I saw no hint of adding filters, oxygen or even potentially a heater for the goldfish to survive a southern winter.

 

One of the biggest bug bears of another forum I am on is people not cycling filters (in fact there is an endless supply of newbie posts about the topic and why they need to do it right through to how), and because of the shows obvious disregard for  the wellbeing of what they see as just fish it got me thinking about how fish laws stand in Australia.

 

Take for example because of the other forum I am on being mostly American and English, I know that feeding livefish to predatory fish in the UK is illegal. And that there are excepted modes of euthanizing a fish which does not involve placing it in the freezer till it does of frost bite, the general concensus seems to be clove oil and or a sharp knife through the spinal column. I know the Vatican banned the sale of goldfish bowls because they deemed them cruel. And there is a huge lobby to stop the giving of goldfish as prizes at UK fairs. I know right now in the EU there is an extreme group that is actually trying to ban the sale of any non native fish species citing health conerns (human I am guessing not the actual wellbeing of the species being trapped and shipped).

 

So seeing the disregard for the fish in the show (not the first time I have seen similar things either), it got me to wondering where our laws and the RSPCA stands on fish welfare. Do we have any enforceable laws regarding what fish can be kept in, or the size requirements for certain species or are the authorities happy to see 1000 fish crammed into a 1ft tank? (extreme example but we all know somebody how has overstocked a tank with fish that will grow huge).

But most importantly does the show have a case to answer to for their treatment of a couple of humble goldfish?

[OzShrimp]

Love the show but i picked up on exactly what you did and made those comments to my fiancee, ultimately they dont care about the fish just ratings in the end

[Squiggle]

Yeah, gotta agree, nobody gives a hoot about fish & their health cause "they just live in water"

[OzShrimp]

I think candy and ryans pond idea was pretty good if only they didnt have to can it i think it would of matched the balinese theme nicely

[Lozza]

they don't seem to have any regard for the goldfish or council laws of any kind. as far as I know you have to "dial before you dig" surely they would have been given plans to where all the sewage and water pipes were as well. ratings before common sense I think.

[newbreed]

I was pretty freaked out the shop owners, directed by production crew I'm sure, allowed the contestant to catch their own fish?!?!

Hope he hasn't stressed out all the fish he didn't catch!!

[OzShrimp]

end product of the pond looked like crap to! lol i bet those other poor fish initially shown died because they ended up with the commons

[inverted]

You should lodge a complaint with the network/producer and the rspca

[Baccus]

I was actually thinking of penning a letter to the television ombudsman about it.

I saw tonight where the fish had a pump of some sort in at least one of the ponds, but no idea about the other section of pond. I know they purchased some more fish to add to the two fantails but again they only got I think 2 commons (possibly comets) and another couple of fancy fantails.

Surely in this day and age it would have been far smarter if your going to put in a fish pond like that and give it to people with live fish who potentially have no idea about proper care, then a better option would have been to go with an endemic fish species to the area. That might at least stand some chance of surviving the temp, shallow water and learning curve of care needed. Also I would have thought common sense would dictate that you don't add fake plants to an outdoors pond, but grow real plants in there.