# wild caught vs. farm raised whats your opinion



## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

Hi everyone I was wonderiing what my fellow fish forum members thought of buying wild caught stock, or farm raised, what are your opinions on the fish, health, temperment, life span, etc. I was curious as to what ya'll thought, I personally like farm raised fish they seem to last longer and are overall more hardy, but that's just me. So spill, what's everyones take on this. Saltwater counts also, I decided to make only one thread in freshwater...


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

IME (freshwater) farm raised fish grow faster, are far more tolerant of poor water quality and are more aggressive.

If I had a choice, I'd get F1 or F2 from a tank breeder. Close enough to wild to know collection location, not too inbred, not hybrid (happens in ponds), and already dewormed and acclimated to my water.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

Well that's two for farm raised


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

for salt, you want to encourage tank/farm breeding. But not trans-location, like raising lionfish in Florida oceans or mbuna in L. tanginika. But buying invasive fish (like lionfish from Florida) is a good thing if it gets them out of where they don't belong. 

I'm not opposed to wild caught, esp. if you intend to breed and distribute. I am a bit concerned about bringing home new diseases. Though, lately it seems that 'wild' diseases are far more treatable than 'tropical fish industry' diseases that have developed multi-drug resistances.

Its kind of complicated. A healthy, sustainable fish export trade will encourage conservation of habitat. 

Taking endangered fish only to keep them one to a tank is selfish.

Brazil has banned most pleco exports, but that causes a lot more plecos to die in illegal transport overland to the border and fewer plecos to get bred in the hobby to meet the demand in lieu of wild caught.

For fresh, I don't want any 'mixed Africans' and some pond bred fish are getting hybridized. Some Florida farmers are very good and control their stock and don't mix cross-breed-able fish but you don't know where a fish in a PetChain comes from. A lot of Asian gouramis and plecos are 'pot luck' where they throw in different fish every year to try to make new pretty fish that do well in the ponds.

Support the small, specialist breeder who can tell you how to make a fish happy and where it came from. 

IME a fish that is ideal for ponds (fast growing, large, huge spawns) will not be a great tank fish. 

A fish you have to breed in tanks, that is slow-growing, small and has few fry, will more likely be perfect for a small aquarium and impossible to find in stores supplied by big farms.


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## AvocadoPuffDude (Jan 20, 2011)

Zillions of neon tetras and cardinal tetras are taken from the Rio ***** every year, with no noticeable impact on their survival. In nature they live a year, and reproduce in such numbers that fish keeping has not impacted their populations at all.
However, there are fish that the hobby (or other factors) HAVE affected.
It also depends on availability. Some fish simply have not been bred, or are not commercially viable to be bred, and wild-caught is your only option. In those instances, if you can, you want to try and stick with "responsible" fish capture practices, as opposed to cyanide, which could obviously harm the fish in the process.
I agree with NEVER purchasing fish from the big box stores, PetCo especially (but also PetSmart) and supporting your lfs.
Last, farm-raised fish TEND to be more adapted to life in an aquarium, more readily accepting flake foods and such, and more tolerant of water conditions, but sometimes in breeding can diminish the breeding stock over time and you get poorer quality fish in general (such as what has happened to guppies.)


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Don't count on wild caught supplies continuing in the future. Pick your all-time favorite fish and try to set up a sustainable colony (big tank, pond or multi-tank with multiple bloodlines) and get in a species maintenance program. Habitats are shrinking every day and the ones that are preserved often end up with collecting prohibited.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

but certain fish dont breed in aquarium set ups


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

yet. Its always yet. You can breed seahorses, damsels, and more fish are tank bred every day. Big public aquariums are breeding stingrays and the GA aquarium wants to breed whale sharks. If you can get a fish from a breeder, they can tell you optimal conditions to keep it happy. Fish that only come from the wild, don't eat, and slowly die in aquariums are a waste of money and a exercise in cruelty.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Many SW fish a re the exception to that though! Ten years ago, some fish were very hard to keep and died! Now, even fish like Clown triggers and Humu Humu triggers are being born and raised in captivity! For FW, I'd buy farm/breeder raised fish. For SW, *IF* I can get a fish farm raised, I will, but otherwise, from nature is fine by me. Just ask my happy as a clam (No. Oyster. ) Hawaiian Snowflake Eel!


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## Corwin (May 23, 2010)

I much prefer farm raised simply based on the fact that in a lot of cases with wild caught fish if the demand is high enough the country that those fish come from will farm them out of existance simply for the profit. So by sticking to mostly farm bred fish im helping to keep the market for those fish down, and thus helping to maintain their populations in the wild. In a small way.

I have to REALLY want a fish in order to get one that isnt farm bred.


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## kay-bee (Dec 6, 2006)

emc7 said:


> Fish that only come from the wild, don't eat, and slowly die in aquariums...


There are 'wild caught'-only SW species which thrive in captivity.

From my understanding the majority of SW fish species available in the hobby are wild caught (granted there are many species that can and do breed in captivity). Hopefully, more species will be tank-bred as you have implied.



funlad3 said:


> ...even fish like Clown triggers and Humu Humu triggers are being born and raised in captivity...


Triggerfish in the hobby are tank-raised, not tank bred. 

To date only queen triggerfish (normally not kept in the hobby) have (fairly recently) successfully bred in captivity (at a public aquarium), and only after a decade of trying.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Ohhh! I get that. Whoops. Still, at one point, and I hate to use such a cliché, even clown fish were only wild caught! We learned a bit about them, studied them, and now they readily breed for even the most inexperienced SW enthusiast! 


And Cossie, knowing you.... Get one of the same type that's either a lot larger than what you have now, (Greater of two evils) OR get one of the same type that's a lot SMALLER than what you have now. (Lesser of two evils) Then again, your DLF would probably eat the parent trying to defend their eggs. Take that PIXAR.


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## kay-bee (Dec 6, 2006)

emc7 said:


> If I had a choice, I'd get F1 or F2 from a tank breeder.


I have the same mind-set in regards to african cichlids.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

the only SW fish I know of that are farm bred are clownfish


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

I don't think a lot of you realize how many FW fish are still wild caught though... as someone mentioned a lot of tetras are still wild caught. Certain fish like BGK are pretty much 100% wild caught. Just because its at Petsmart, petco, ect doesn't mean it isn't wild caught....

My preferences depend on the species in particular and what all my options are. Most importantly there are many different quality options when it comes to tank bred fish. Who breeds the fish, where it is done, what genetic line it is are all important. For example the difference between a chain store fish, a LFS fish, and then a fish from Aquarium Glaser(a very respectable high quality German fish breeding/export company).


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

I got some redeyes from my LFS and they had some genetic defect which made them all develop tumors and die, I thought it was columnaris but when I asked the shop owner he said that all the red eye tetras he had bred were dying of this genetic defect


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## redpaulhus (Jan 18, 2005)

As was mentioned earlier in this thread, wild caught "annual" fresh-water rainforest fishes are actually more eco-friendly than farm raised fish, for one simple reason -- fisherman who's whole village economy is based on these fish will protect the local ecosystem and prevent widespread destruction of the rainforest.
This is the focus of Project Piaba ("Buy a fish, save a tree") -- by buying wild caught cardinals rather than farm raised cardinals, aquarists can help preserve the rainforest by continuing to give these fisherman a reason to prevent slash-and-burn agriculture from destroying the forest.

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/news/lib/180
http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2008/07/buy-a-fish-save-a-tree/
http://projectpiaba.org

One of the scientists in this project (Scott Dowd) is my go-to guy at the New England Aquarium -- his is the liason between the NEAq and the Boston Aquarium Society, so I see him at every monthly BAS meeting, and he has given us a talk and status update on Piaba every few years.
Project Piaba is the BAS "favorite" conservation project, we regularly donate money to the project for new equipment etc.


With that in mind - I'm a big fan of properly handled wild fisheries -- fisheries that harvest post-reproduction adults or otherwise do not impact the breeding populations in the wild (the harvest of marine planktonic larvae that would statistically fail to reach the reef are another option).

I'm not a big fan of mismanaged, destructive fisheries -- but I think fishermen are learning that if they sell all of the fish today they will starve tomorrow.
(Scott has recently been working with a group in India that is looking at adopting a Piaba-style approach to the local fishery, getting the fishermen to understand that protecting the environment and collecting responsibly can mean a more stable long term fishing "industry" for them.)

However - I'm also a HUGE fan of locally bred "aquarium strain" fishes -- color variants of killies, guppies, apisto's, etc. There's nothing like a locally bred "apisto. caucatoides triple-red" or "orange australe", especially when compared to mass-produced "farm" fish 

So far I've been very un-impressed with the farm-raised eastern-European fishes that I've been seeing in some of my local stores.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

great comment


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

There are now over 100 saltwater species regularly bred on farms. Cool, eh? Give us another 20 years and watch what happens.

By the way, some fish which are nearly impossible to keep when wildcaught are very easy to keep when captive raised. The reason why is pretty interesting. At one stage in a young juvenile fish's life, it goes from being omnivorous to becoming specialized on the one thing it prefers and will have to have for the rest of it's life. However, if that one thing is NOT available during this time, that gear-switching won't happen, and the fish will remain omnivorous forever. This means that yes, we can indeed produce the most exotic of butterflies and even Moorish Idols which will actually EAT in captivity and live. The tricky part, so far, is figuring out how to to market them without the scumbags out there trying to sneak wildcaughts into the market.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

I want a saltwater tank that's all farm or tank bred fish and iverts...


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## AquariumTech (Oct 12, 2010)

Farm raised are much more suited to aquariums in pretty much every way. Although, it is much more interesting to watch wild caught fish (in most cases and in my opinion) do their thing in the aquarium. If you have an eye for detail, you might see some weird/unique things.


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## e048 (Dec 23, 2010)

like cichlids


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