Have you ever looked upon a fish tank and wondered who decided to keep pet fish? Or look in an aquarium or a koi pond and think about what started it all. Have you ever wondered why fish have been kept? Well I have so now you have to learn about it. The art of keeping fish in an area or being fish keepers started as early as 2500 BCE. This was practiced by the Sumerians who lived in Mesopotamia and they would keep them in a pond in order to have a more sustainable food source.
The next most relevant practice of keeping fish was part of a religious ideal that started with the Ancient Egyptians. They would revere the fish and would keep them sequestered in a pond for symbolic purposes that in their religion was related to fertility. The idea of fertility coming from fish spawned from the Nile Tilapia because they would observe the fish carrying the eggs in their mouth until the day the eggs would hatch. They believed this act to be a miraculous act of creation and rebirth which in the Ancient Egyptians connected to Hathor who was the goddess of fertility, love, and women. This belief led to them wearing amulets shaped like tilapia to increase their own fertility.
The first organization of people to keep fish for aesthetic purposes was the Ancient Romans and Greeks. They had an appreciation for the aesthetic aspect and they would keep fish in ornamental pools and or tanks while some more wealthy individuals would keep live fish under their bed. Fish in Greek culture was a metaphor for seduction and was also a symbol of wealth. Fish being used as a common metaphor for seduction can be found in ancient Greek literature and art. Courtesans of the time would be given the nickname cuttlefish and anchovy.
The style of fishkeeping gained significant popularity during the Tang Dynasty and the Chinese developed techniques for breeding them for both their color and their form. Through this process of breeding the creation of gold fish occurred. The creation of goldfish started with the breeding of the wild crucian carp with red and yellow color mutations. After the selective breeding of these phenotypes there was the appearance of red and gold scales on fish that were predominantly gray or silver. This mutation began appearing in the Jin Dynasty and later during the Tang Dynasty humans would begin selecting goldfish with the phenotypes that would match the aesthetic they were trying to portray in their ornamental ponds.
In the 17th century goldfish were introduced to Europe. They were initially a status symbol among the wealthy and scientifically inclined. The modern aquarium hobby with the focus on creating balanced ecosystems developed more recently with major developments in the 19th century which also led to the invention of more sophisticated tanks.
Goldfish are the notorious fish pets but another popular pet is the betta fish. The Betta is popular because of its beautiful coloring and they are simpler and easier to care for in comparison to some other fish and because it is better to keep them separated since they are an aggressive breed.
