Wild caught fish.

Here's one from another thread that I thought deserved it's own.

what are your thoughts on buying wild caught fish? good or bad thing?
All the retailers in this country (as far as I'm aware) sell them.

Is it time for a change in this regard?
Do you have wild caughts?
Why buy wild caughts when tank bred can be just as nice?
Breeders just doing it to improve husbandry?
collectors doing it because they haven't been bred yet?

whassup folks????thoughts...

From my point of view and with a very specific species (Piranha) it's extremely hard to breed them in captivity and some are so rare that they can only be caught wild.

Wild caught examples have much brighter colouring and tend to be more agressive which with Piranha is a good thing

As far as other fish, I don't mind where they come from. I don't really know enough about any other breeds but I cycled my tank with 20 Zebra Danio's and AFAIK they were captive bred. Grand little fish if a little on the plain side but great fun to watch.

I'm interested to know what others think too!

Matt

My only problem with tank raised species is I am worried there are too many people cross breeding species and in the future it might be hard to find a species that is pure bred that does not come from the wild. I dont know about the lfs's over in Ireland, but around here a lot of the lfs take bred fish from customers not from farms, I know not all species is easy to breed, but there are too many cross bred cichlids showing up in my lfs's.

Of course in the marine species it is the opposite, it is extremely hard to find species that are aqua cultured. One of my lfs orders as much aqua cultured corals and fish as possible, prices are a little high on them, but they have a tendency to adjust to water params better that natural cultivated ones.

I dont and wont buy wild caught fish. There is enough variety of tank breed ones. I scuba , and if you saw these fish in the natural environment its hard to want to take them away from it. Its the primary reason why I did not go for a marine setup. Another reason is that a hell of a lot of marine fish die in the time between when the leave the ocean till they get to your tank. So for every wild caught one that gets to your tank several others die(cant remember the %) and I am not comfortable with that.

I would have to agree with that, there are many up & coming countries on the fishscene and there is no reason why enough cant be captive bred. Its only price. The harder they are to bred the better price they command, but will people pay the price?
regards

In regard to Lake Malawi I think its a hard one to call.Being on a rift in two tectonic plates the lake could be destroyed any time.Meaning all of us Malawi keepers would have endangered species in our tanks.
I think the important thing is if you are into tank bred to bear in mind inter breeding and keep good lines.If you are into wild caught consider keeping it in as good quality conditions as possible,in order to lessen the blow of captivity.
Personally I think wild caughts are a good idea if they keep strains healthy and strengthen the quality of fish.Just as long as it is done in moderation.I know that Caeruleas are extremely hard to find in Lake Malawi and we only have them now because a guy got a few from Ad Konings out in Malawi,bred them out by the lake then imported them in their thousands.There are very few if any wild caught Caeruleas around.

I like this idea of breeding using the lake. There is too much inbreeding in our hobby at the moment but I don`t like the idea of massively over fishing lakes.
Just look at lake Victoria its almost a dead lake due to over fishing and polution.

and nasty weeds.

You have to remember that man is the pollouter, and breeding in lakes can only lead to more polloution. The same happened with irish rivers 30 years ago, they bred trout & fed them up to the hilt. The by product was rainbows where there should have been brownies and further down the rivers there were little or no fish as the feeding they were doing was going rotten further downand killing them. the same with the salmon stocks. Salmon have to live in a clean environment for two years before going to sea to feed, what chance do they have in polouted waters.
If man wants the hobby then man should also deal with the waste. so should the fishkeeper.Let the pollouter pay and clean his own mess

I think you are referring to my point about fish being bred in Malawi.This is done lakeside,meaning in manmade ponds beside the lake in a controled environment where overfeeding does not occur.So there is no need to worry about polluting Lake Malawi from overfeeding!!!

I think you are referring to my point about fish being bred in Malawi.This is done lakeside,meaning in manmade ponds beside the lake in a controled environment where overfeeding does not occur.So there is no need to worry about polluting Lake Malawi from overfeeding!!!

Yes. I think I is a great idea. Within reason.

HI
DREW HERE, I DO AGREE TAKING WILD FISH FROM THERE HABITAT IS WRONG, BUT , AS FAR AS I AM AWARE, CLOWN LOACH, BLEEDING HEARTS, REDTAIL BLACK SHARKS AMONGST OTHER "BREAD N BUTTER" FISH,NOT TO MENTION L NOS. ARE STILL MOSTLY WILD CAUGHT, WHICH MOST OUTLETS STOCK! HOWEVER, WE ARE CURRENTLY DEALING WITH A SUPPLIER IN PERU,THE MAJOR ONE! WHO HAS ONE MILLION ACRES OF FOREST FOR COLLECTING WILD CAUGHT STOCKS AND BREEDING THEM!! INCLUDING SPECIES NEVER BRED BEFORE, AVAILABLE SOON!!! THEY HAVE PUT ALOT OF RESEARCH INTO ECOSYSTEMS FOR DIFFERENT SPECIES ETC. SO HOPEFULLY THE REST OF THE WORLD WILL FOLLOW!!!!!!

So does that mean we "the western world" will start pollouting millions of acres in peru now? Just for the sake of a few fish.
You maybe should be looking at ceylon instead. They have millions of gallons of tanked systems, all non polouting & re-cycled for fish production and not a single wild caught fish is exported. But again they can be undercut in price by millions of tons of fish waste dumped in peru, probably because it cheaper & no-one cares where their fish come from as long as there are fat profits for our society.
Remember that the farmers in this country are still reeling from the water courses they polouted with tons of phosphates from south atlantic bird droppings. Packaged as fertilizer. They didnt realize that profits then meant paying in the future.
Re-use Re-cycle & renew ( the peruvian farmers probably dont speak this lingo)but I bet they know what Euros mean

Could we please get a translator in to decode bouroughmals threads? :?: :?: :idea:

Hi Drew,any interseting new fish on the agenda??This would be a nice time because I was gonna set up another African tank but could be very easily swayed to the other side.Also Im getting sick of just having rocks in my tanks,wanna get some greenery going again!!

HI CHRIS
I`M DOING AN ORDER TO ONE OF OUR SUPPLIERS IN CZECH. REP. TONIGHT. I HAVE LOTS OF PEOPLE WHO WANT THE MORE UNUSAL TANGS. INCLUDING CYATHOPHARYNX FURCIFER, ENANTIOPUS MELANOGENYS, XENOTILAPIA OCHROGENYS PLUS SYNODONTIS GRANULOSUS (STUNNING CATFISH, ONLY 50 EXPORTED A YEAR! SUPER RARE!) AMONGST OTHERS. SO IF YOU PHONE THE SHOP TONIGHT (WERE OPEN UNTIL 8.00) OR P.M. ME, I WILL ADD WHATEVER YOU WANT TO THE ORDER. IT IS SCHEDULED FOR MON.

I UNDERSTAND WHAT MAL IS SAYING, BUT MANY OF THE SPECIES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN BRED BEFORE ARE NOT GOING TO BRED IN TANKS! THEY ARE TRIGGERED BY TEMP. CHANGES/RAINY SEASONS/MOON POSITIONING ETC WHICH ARE HARD TO MIMIC IN CAPTIVITY, IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE! THIS IS WHY THEY ARE MAKING THIS AREA IN THE JUNGLE, BE IT ARTIFICAL, TO "NATURALLY BREED THE PLECS, AROWANA, ETC. THE ONLY OTHER OPTION I CAN SEE IS HORMONE INJECTION, NOT GOOD EITHER!

stop shouting drew! :wink:

so you understand what Mal is saying... but do you know what the CAPS LOCK button is ?

Its for SHOUTING something,and is impolite to use it all the time,unless you are Russian(no offence meant to any Russians on the site).

Damian, I think he'll get the idea without the additional emphasis. :roll:

i bet he did.
but clarification is always good

Hi guys
ok point taken! sorry about shouting!!!!

Hi all,
I have heard of no species of fish that has been made extinct by fishkeepers collecting them. This whole campaign of people with their PC agenda is a load of bull (am I allowed to writes this in the forum?) of the highest order.
The problem with fish going extinct in nature is not over-fishing but habitat distruction. Once local collectors know the can make a living from catching fish for the aquarium trade they are less likely to destroy the fishes habitat by, for example, burning down rainforest to grow crops for a couple of years before burning the next batch of rainforest.

Just look at all that nonsense that has been written about Hypancistrus zebra (L46). The only reason why this fish is not exported anymore has nothing in the world to do with overfishing. The Brazilian government introduced positive export lists. Hypancistrus is not on those lists. That in turn means no species in genus is allowed to be exported from Brazil.
However, the Brazilian and Chinese governments are working on an aluminium producing joint venture at present. And as aluminium production requires a lot of water the Rio Xingu (L46's habitat) will have to be dammed and in turn you might as well kiss L46 as a species in the wild good-bye.
A lot of the the whole environmental issue regarding wild caught fish is just hypocracy by the governments of the respective export countries fuelled by the overwhelming ignorance of associations like the WWF, Peta, Greenpeace and other such outfits. Politians on this side of the world just jump on the bandwagon to looked like they give a damn and to be seen like they are doing something about the environment. Essentially it won't do fish in the wild any good if we are not buying them. Some species will only survive if we buy and breed them in the hobby. I could go rant on for pages but that won't do my blood presssure any good.
Holger