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The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about dubious- sounding claims, and whatever else strikes our fancy. The site is also home to the Hoax Photo Database, the Hoax Forum, and the Hoaxipedia.

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RUDE ROVER
The Christmas dog with no class! He sings and toots Jingle Bells.
INFLATABLE TREE
Who needs the hassle of a real Christmas tree?
FARTING SANTA
Go ahead and pull his finger!

I doubt that round bowls make fish blind. There haven't been any studies done on it that I know about.

Maybe it's because there's no flat surfaces to reflect, the fish forgets that's in a bowl and thinks it's really just swimming in the room. Then being disoriented, it . . . .ah nevermind!

Put the little bstrds on treadmills!

Siamese Fighting Fish are sold in round fishbowls, stay in the pet store forever but they can still see other fighting fish. That part's bogus, but the first one is impossible to enforce.

just feed them to ur oscar and dont worrie if they go blind..

I have kept and bred many, many fish over many years, and have read very extensively about captive fish, and I can tell you pretty conclusively that keeping a fish in a round bowl will not cause the fish to go blind.

That's not to say that keeping a goldfish in a small bowl isn't cruel, however. I think it's one of the most common forms of cruelty against pets around. In the aquarium hobby, we refer to those little bowls as "goldfish torture chambers."

You see, goldfish grow to be big fish (a full-grown goldfish is about a foot long), and they have higher oxygen requirements than most pet fish, so one will be very crowded in a bowl if it's any smaller than 10 gallons or so. You might get away with keeping a small juvenile goldfish (2 inches or less) in a smaller bowl (say, 2 gallons) if you change the water very frequently, but you'd still need a bigger tank to move the fish to when it grows up-- which it will, if it lives long enough and you don't stunt it through filthy water and other bad conditions. What's that, you've never seen a foot-long goldfish? That's because most of them never get a chance to get that big. A goldfish's natural lifespan, by the way, is several decades. How many have you known of that lived that long?

I had one that made it to the foot long mark, but then I left the country and my parents didn't take care of it as they said they would...

fish don't see that well anyway

Big Gary, you rock! You said, so eloquently, exactly what I wanted to say! Rock on, dude!

I love Big Gary too. Eloquent sanity!

I'll just add to his comment that the majority of people keeping fish in bowls are not up to cycling tanks or maintaining water quality. On my pet site, we ALWAYS recommend the biggest tank a beginner can get.

Simplistically: Say a fish produces X amount of waste. X is going to be 10% of the water in a small bowl, but only 1% in a large tank. More water means more margin for error.

As for going blind, I've never seen or heard of that, and have kept fish for decades. I've even had them in bowls, though never when I could afford better, and always with strict water maintenance.

Hooray for Rome, though! I doubt it's all enforceable, but at least people will be thinking about it!

Oxygen in the water is influenced partially by the amount of surface area, but it's also influenced by aireation (water bubbles from filter systems) and the quantity of fish compared to the amount of water. I've seen some very large 'bowls' of fish. Public aquariums often have huge rounded swimming areas for sharks. A local mall has a massive round 'bowl' that goes floor to ceiling, full of expensive saltwater fish. These aquariums are well aireated and filtered and are not overcrowded and the fish do well in them.

Very interesting, but I wonder why I cannot find any reference to this by-law anywhere in the website of Il Messaggero nor in the City of Rome's website.

They're a damn fish. Who cares?

I have to disagree about the requirement to walk the dog. Not every dog needs to walk for exercise. While I agree that keeping a dog chained up or cooped up in a small apartment isn't good, having a yard for them to run free can be better than a walk. We never walk our two boxers. One of them has never been good on a leash, no matter how much training he had. But we do have a good sized yard that they can run and run and jump and fight and play and run some more. Absolutely no need for walks for them. We let them out all year round except when it's really wet and rainy, sometimes nearly all day long.

I've seen this report on a news website, well it is a general website but it does have news articles, that isn't connected with CNN. If it's a hoax, it is getting spread around. Enrique, how long does it take for a government to post laws on their website? In some cases, maybe forever, but how long after this set of laws were passed was it when you checked? As far as the newspaper, that is more serious. I would presume that a newspaper would have their website up to date. Dogs are too loyal and loving to mistreat. Anyone with a dog should exercise the dog often. Take it for a walk, it's good exercise for you too.

My first question was, "What is 'round'?"

I've seen bowls that were round vertical, with flat sides and a small top opening. I've seen bowls that were round horizontal - only about 4-6 inches tall but 12 inches across. Those have a good size opening. I've seen several types of spherical bowls. One had a tiny opening, one had a very generous opening. One was a "Bio-Orb" bowl. Its opening was smaller, but it had a very advanced filtration system and was well aerated. So, which type of bowl are they banning? Wouldn't it just be simpler to TEACH people how to take care of their animals rather than regulating the whole mess?

Well, if you see everything through distorting glass, you might develop eye problems, right?

It's a fish! The dog idea makes sense because it's been shown that dogs that are taken out and socialised are much less prone to aggressive beavhiour than dogs that are locked up, but for god's sakes! It's a fish!
Can it even see outside the tank?

Can it remember that it saw outside the tank?

Even so, what is round? do they mean 'perfect circle' round, or as in, 'it cann't be any shape that has one continuous edge' round?

Libre: fish are living beings too, and deserve decent care. From the article, it seems that Rome is trying to legislate basic pet care. I don't know how they'll successful they'll be, but it's heartening to see someone try, since so many other countries will only step in if there's actual documented animal abuse. Many people think "it's only a fish" but I hope the people in Rome who think that way will now think twice before getting a pet they consider disposable.

I'm not an animal rights person, but I am an animal welfare person. I'm glad to see someone at least try this.

Fish are not disposable pets, as Steph said (rightly so), and do deserve decent care. That includes a tank big enough for them to grow. They have a genetic imperitive to get to their full size, and if not given enough room they will die. The majority of the time this is true. If you think a fish is a disposable pet, please don't buy one! That's all there is to it.

It's simple: The round bowls remind the goldfish of boobies, and so they end up masturbating more. I bet they go blind AND have hairy fins.