Tank raised vs wild caught

lorax84

I always go for tank raised fish when available. I do this for two main reasons. First, tank raised fish tend to adapt to my water conditions much more readily than wild. Second, wild fish are almost always more expensive and it's not always verifiable that they are wild caught.

I disagree on one major point that beetlebz made. I do not believe line breeding (breeding for specific traits) is comparable to what goes on at puppy mills. I have a friend who used to breed really nice fancy guppies and he kept each line separate to preserve/enhance their traits. As he went through this process her culled fish heavily, removing fish that showed any sign of deformity or weakness. Usually he fed these fish to other fish he kept. His fishes genetics stayed very strong and they were always very hardy.

I would agree though that the large scale commercial operations are somewhat detrimental to the hobby. Fish bred in large ponds and allowed to interbreed with no controls diminishes genetics. I try not to buy these fish because they always end up having problems down the road.

thekoimaiden

I did some more reading on the Cardinal Tetra trade. Who would have thought that the aquarium trade was helping save the rainforest. I will gladly support the sustainable cardinal fishery. I looked up pictures of the two varieties, and I do like the Brazilian form better. I think the reason I initially didn't like cardinals is that I had seen the chubbier form. This is now one of my favorite fish!

Overall, my views on wild v captive haven't changed much (kinda still feel like I'm stuck between a rock and hard spot for many Asian species like loaches and gourami :/ ), but I will certainly take another look at wild-caught South American species from now on. I like many selectively bred species and will continue to buy them from responsible breeders. It seems like no matter what you chose (cichlids, Goldfish, or saltwater) the key to this hobby is researching everything right down to where your fish was born.

beetlebz

That was poorly worded on my behalf. While I do not have faith that ALL of the commercial breeders are as respectable as far as breeding (and more importantly inbreeding) as your friend is, I was making a generalized statement (which, admittedly are irresponsible on my part ) leaning more towards weakened gene pools. Unfortunately, in breeding for specific traits its very difficult at times to avoid inbreeding.