Tropical fish cosmetic surgery

I don't see much defense to taking a knife to a fish because you think it will look better, but then again, I don't see much of a defense in breeding feeder fish down so they are genetic messes and keeping them in dreadful, overcrowded overmedicated conditions.

Danios, parrots and many many FW fish are captive raised, as are feeder goldfish, so I am interested in peoples ethical differentiation between the animals. Is the difference 'beauty' vs 'food'?
 
We keep animals captive in atrocious conditions (feedlots, chickens with beaks clipped in tiny cages stacked ten high, fed growth hormone and antibiotics to make them bigger and counteract the debilitating effects of their horrendous living conditions, stuff like that). I suspect that those of us who are meat eaters would rather eat only free range animals because at least they live comfortable lives before they end up at the slaughterhouse and we wouldn't be subjected to all the drugs and hormones. Food, as I need cuttle pointed out, is essential to life, and beauty is not. the Joan Rivers of the world subject themselves to all kinds of mutilation in order to achieve their standards of beauty(personally I think she looks like the walking dead) but that's a matter of choice. Captive animals don't get to choose. We make their choices for them, and whether we are keeping them for their food value or their recreational value, if we consider ourselves to be moral and ethical people,we owe it to them to keep them in conditions that are as humane as we can.
 
I don't think this has to do with human food needs. Feeder goldfish are consistently abused, but we never hear anything about it.
Feeder fish are for the beautiful fish that we keep, so it seems odd to me that we, as a collective, don't care about their plight.
 
I'm really talking more about consistency. We can differentiate between keeping any kind of captive animal that is destined for food, whether it's food for us, for our cuttles or octos, our reptiles, or whatever in decent conditions or in deplorable conditions,and opt for the decent conditions. We can take the stand that keeping any kind of animal in captivity for the sole purpose of feeding our selves, our aquarium animals or our reptiles or whatever is wrong in principle, but do it anyway (again, in decent conditions) because we, and they, have to eat, or we can take the leap and say that we should avoid keeping any species of animal captive in order to feed another species. Of the three positions, probably the middle one is the least defensible morally. The last position is the least logical, because everything has to eat and some species will only eat live food. Of course, the other option is not to keep any species at all, eliminate all aquariums, zoos, wild animal parks, etc. But then you get to the fact that some species have almost disappeared in the wild because of disappearing habitat and the only thing that is keeping the species alive are the breeding programs in those facilities. Feeder goldfish are being kept and bred in horrendous conditions, but so are feeder hens, feeder beef, feeder anything. We need to be humane in the way we raise and keep any of them, or we need to stop doing it at all.
 

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