Wild caught vs. tank bred

[Liberty_Girl]

Hey all! Sorry to bug ya, again. But I had a question about fish. I've noticed some fish are "tank-bred." Does this mean some fish are pulled out of the ocean to be put in aquariums? Isn't this dangerous? Aren't there all kinds of desieses the wild caught fish can have? Also, is this humane? Which are better, wild caught fish or tank-bred fish? Does it matter? Does it affect the fish to be pulled out of the wild and put in a tank?

I guess I've seen "Finding Nemo" one to many times.

-the internet elf

 

[knifefishfreack]

well somtimes when they catch saltwater fish they put some sort of chemical in the water to knock out the fish so they will float to the top.so it s easier to get them. this is destroying the reef and shorting the fishes life. I am not completly shore but i saw it on the discovery channel.

 

[wayne]

Most marine fish are wild caught. So are an awful lot of freshwater fish for that matter. So yes' they are 'pulled out of the ocean'. Isn't this dangerous - well yes and no - they do often come with a full set of diseases and parasites.
Is this humane, does it affect the fish? Good questions which people should ask themselves before jamming fish in 5 or 10 gallon tanks. There are some fish which should never be kept in captivity, or only in very, very large tanks, and some that do very well and can live and thrive for many years.
Tank bred better than wild? Yes I think so , but the list of fish that have been bred and raised is pretty small, and commercially it's a tough enviroment. Many fish have been spawned but raising marine fry is typically very, very difficult compared to freshwater.
Cyanide poisoning is an absolute blight on the industry, though how much of it now goes on is a tricky question. It is an unfortunate truth it does happen, and the majority of fish caught this way go to the less scrupuluous/fussy vendors (read big US chanin petstores). I think I see far less dpoed fish than I have in the past.

 

[DSK]

I wont get all technical on you but tank bread fish only know an aquarium - " wild " fish have been in the ocean and are use to being able to swim freely as they want.

Its kinda the same as a person going blind and a person being blind at birth.

if your born blind you cant miss being able to see cause you dont know any diff.

 

[1979camaro]

of course if you are fish you may not miss the ocean anyway if you can't remember it...lol

i try to buy tank bred when i can (most of your clowns can be, for example) but as wayne points out it is impossible to get a lot of fish that way. like any other harvesting, if it is done in moderation it is not really damaging to the ecosystem...

 

[aresgod]

also many of the territories of the wild fish in the ocean are relatively small, and with a constant food source can be reproduced relatively acurately in an aquarium

 

[AndyL]

Yes most SW fish are wild caught... But that is changing rapidly - most clowns yousee at the LPS/LFS are now captive bred, many of the gobies, we even know how to CB many of the dwarf angels these days.

There's going to be an upcoming shortage in a lot of marine life due to the whole tsunami incident. A lot of LR, LS, fish, corals, and many of the products we expect to find - are going to dry up quickly (reefs got beat up - but more importantly there's noone left to collect them or places to take them for shipping). Which hopefully will renew a push on aquacultured SW goods.

Andy

 

[dbacksrat]

when possible, buy tank bred and aquacultured life over wild caught--they have a better chance of eating, more resistant to disease, etc
it also supports the further quest to breed more marine life

 

[bravenewworld]

Originally posted by dbacksrat
when possible, buy tank bred and aquacultured life over wild caught--they have a better chance of eating, more resistant to disease, etc
it also supports the further quest to breed more marine life

Just a quick question.
How would a "farmed" fish be more resistant to disease than a wild fish? It seems to me that a wild fish would encounter a larger variety than cultivated.

 

[wayne]

It will be more disease resistant as it will be less stressed in a captive enviroment, so it will have a more functional immune system.
There are many , many fish who's behaviour patterns allow them to adapt well to captive life, and equally there are a lot, including many fish that people commonly try to keep and struggle with, that aren't. Tangs are a great example of fish that don't nowmally do well in small tanks as they move around a lot on the reef. Damsels, clowns , gobies barely move at all.

 

[S.Reef]

Speaking of tank bred, I'm back in buisness with the clownfish breeding. Gonna have a pair of Goldstriped maroons, Clarks, Tomatos, and two pairs of perculas. Of course ill need a few months to get up and running.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

So cool

 

[1979camaro]

andyL makes a great point abouts tuff coming in from abroad...things will be much harder to find in the LFS and much more expensive post tsunami...now, for example, is the time to get that cleaner shrimp you've had your eye on because in a few weeks they are going to be much more scarce (even though they can be bred)...basically the same situation with most of the fish/inverts you see in your books labeled indo-pacific

 

[AndyL]

Little worse than even 1979 makes it out to be... The indo pacific region became a bit of a hub for other areas to send their SW stuff to. Several of the larger "Aquaculturing" facilities were in indonesia...

It's not just the Indo-pacific, stuff that's about to skyrocket in price...

Andy

 

[S.Reef]

Umm...I disagree. Although the indian ocean was hit pretty hard and stuff comes from there. Most stuff comes from the pacific and will be unaffected as well as the atlantic and red sea. I doubt that prices will sky rocket.

 

[1979camaro]

well then, ill disagree back

the pacific is virtually empty until you get to the indo-pacific area, and while not all the major supplying regions were hit, the infrastructure there (whats left of it) is now almost entirely focused on the rebuilding/salvage efforts

 

[KahluaZzZ]

I'm positive that some stores will boost their prices anyways. This is the perfect excuse to make more money. You'll buy yellow tangs from Hawaii twice the price even tough the tsunami didn't wreck anything there.

 

[1979camaro]

only if you don't call the LFS on that one

 

[S.Reef]

The majority of live stock comes from the :Southeastern Pacific region-which includes Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, and the Chistmas Islands to name a few. Eastern Pacific region- which includes the Clipperton Atoll, and Galapagos Islands. The Hawaian Island region. And the Central Pacific Region-Marshall Islands, Midway, Line Island, etc. Also the Great Barrier Reef was not hit along with Vanuatu, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and other big islands in the Coral sea.

Maldives, Sri Lanka, parts of Indonesia, and parts of Malaysia are places that got hit, but most if not all fish found in those regions can be found in places unaffected.

Really only time will tell.