'AITA for not realizing I hurt someone's feelings because I said no to giving them baby fish?'

"AITA for not realizing I hurt someone's feelings because I said no to giving them some baby fish and not thinking it was a big idea afterwards?"

So recently a pair of my guppies had baby fry in my community tank.(That's An aquarian tank hosting multiple different species of fish) Now I didn't really want the babies because guppies can have up to 50 babies per spawning and i have neither the tank space nor the food to keep them.

So I left them for the adult fish in the tank to eat, this is a pretty common thing to do with keeping guppies as it help with population control. ( I only have 4 adult guppies because I didn't want to overcrowd my tank with all the babies these absolute horndog fish can have).

Expecting most of them to pass, I kept telling my mother and younger sibling not to have any high hopes as most of them weren't going to survive.

(I was right, she had at least 20 and now there are only 9 fry left in only a week of them being born). Which leads to my current issue, at the moment my mother is letting some people stay with us in a caravan in the backyard. Last night the woman(38F) heard that I didn't expect many of them to live so she asked if she could have them and I told her straight up no.

Now I would like to state that if the option of giving the baby fry away in time for them not to be eaten was possible then I would of done so. Unfortunately that wasn't the case as no one I know has a set up and fully cycled tank ready to take the baby fry that wouldn't of sent them into water shock and k#$ed them immediately, or gotten them eaten by their own fish.

Baby fish are sensitive and fragile who would of thought 😒, but any way I thought that was the end of it. Apparently not because right after getting home this afternoon my mother comes storming up to me and scolds me for hurting her friends feelings.

So I try explaining to her that the reason I said no was exactly because she didn't have a tank set up and ready for them, and that as I said I hadn't expected many to survive if any at all.

Better the fry have quick ends then suffocate slow and painfully because someone wanted fish without doing the work required of keeping a living breathing animal. My mother then goes on about how she knows I dissociate and I'm not aware when I'm being cold but that I had been an asshole to her friend and that I really hurt her feelings.

So basically AITA for not realizing I just her feelings telling her no she couldn't have the fish, and then not really thinking it was a big deal? Okay so I should probably add some more info😅 my bad. When she asked for the fish I was doing a water change and I had just pointed out the babies to her as I have never had baby guppies before and thought it was interesting and wanted to share that.

I bought the adult guppies about two weeks ago, I bought them believing them to be all male as I definitely didn't want baby fish and knew I was not prepared to look after baby fry. I have one community tank with some tetras, snails, the guppies and a pleco.

(My brother bought the pleco before I knew how big they got and stuck me with it, I have plans to move it to a better home with a friend who takes in large rescued fish. If I gave the baby fry to him they would have ended up as food for the larger fish, he also lives too far away for me to just pop in and ask if he can spare a tank for baby guppies).

(Because again the babies would not of lived long enough for any such plan to happen) The reason I didn't give them away to any other person was because I live in a rather rural town and only three people here keep fish, myself included in that.

All of us keep fish that would eat the baby fry, none of us want baby fish so of course we don't have tanks laying around for them to go in. Being in a rural town the nearest fish or just a pet show in general is four hours away, so I couldn't give them the bay fry either.

Baby fry would not survive being sent in the post, especially in the Western sun. So really my only option was to let nature take its course, or give them to my mother friend, who had no tank setup, no food for them, no filter, no light and none of the required water treatments to ensure the didn't die a slow and painful death in highly chlorinated and chloramine filled water.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

asfierceaslions wrote:

NTA. If nothing else, they're food for your fish. Why would anyone else think themselves owed that? She essentially asked if she could have some fish to kill instead of letting your fish, ya know, eat. Wild.

OP responded:

I see your point and from that point of view it would make sense, but some of the reasons I chose not to give her the fish is because she is currently not in a stable position, as she is living in a caravan in our backyard( she does not own the caravan either) and she does not have a tank that could be cleaned and set up in time to put the fish in.

Truthfully this is the first time I've had baby guppies, I bought the adults about two weeks ago and the female arrived already pregnant, had I been planning to breed them for babies I definitely would have been prepared to keep them.

Redrunner04 wrote:

NTA for what you said. Anyone who asks for guppy fries clearly don’t know much about fish and/or are not ready to have them responsibly. I’m not as sure on the -how- you said it, whether that was the real bigger issue with your mom.

My mom shuts down all logic faculties the moment we start sounding “rude," no matter how in the right we are about the particular issue. God forbid someone uses a four-letter word in her presence.

OP responded:

Do we share the same mother 👀... 😂. Yeah I completely understand what you mean.

axw3555 wrote:

NTA. I had guppies most of my life, and there’s a tank at my grandparents that had a single constant colony of gullies from 1962 until 2019. Why 2019? Because the tank leaked, which drained down the water, burned out the heaters, and screwed the balance. We saved maybe 8 fish out of hundreds.

We got a new tank, new heaters. But it took years to get the tank stabilised again. Every time we had it settled there was some new variable that went wrong (it was originally my grandads, but he was wheelchair-bound with dementia by that point, so he couldn’t help). It’s back to a breeding population now, but yeah, it took work to get everything right.

People think fish are zero maintenance pets, they’re not. Honestly, I’d find something online that shows all the upkeep a tank needs, the things that they need to buy beyond food, etc and give it to her and go “are you willing to do all of this for what would end up as dozens of fish even in a small tank?”

HelenaHandcart1 wrote:

NTA. You sound like a very thoughtful and considerate person. You know what these baby fish need and a straight up no was fine for a blatant request out of the blue. Don’t stress about this thoughtLESS person’s feelings.

She hasn’t even thought about how she’s going to keep them. I don’t think your Mum is being fair to you, either. Do either of them really understand what’s involved? By all means take a few minutes to explain in a neutral way to your Mum why you had to say no but you aren’t in the wrong here.

OniyaMCD wrote:

NTA. This woman is a grown adult and responsible for her own feelings. She's living in a mobile home (as I understand 'caravan' equates to), and did not say that she currently has a tank ready for guppies.

Now, since guppies are absolute horndogs, you could explain to her (not your mom) that it was too late to prep for this particular spawning, but **if** she has a tank ready when they spawn again, you could set some fry aside for her. (Also, these are guppies - last I heard, they're on the cheap end of the pet-store pricing. Lady can't afford guppies, she probably can't afford a fishbowl.)