Endangered/wild fish...

[Danny - the lost soul---]

Not sure what the question was but I did carch the whole breeding of fish.
I have to agree that any species for the most part can be bred in captivity givin the proper requierments.
Now, as far as the breeding wild / endangered fish. Well, here is a scenerio, I have been breeding Lake Victorian cichlids for many, many years now. Many species have been sent to me by either a zoo, private collector/breeder,University, or captive breeding program many ,many,many, others I locate and purchase to add to my personal collection. Which in turn I then either send away to oter breeders,zoos, Universities for studies and or research. This in turn helps us as hobbiest better understand the fish we keep and helps determine there fututre and true strains.
And the same is done back and fourth. Many of the species I keep are endangered or thretened and a few extinct! but, if not for hobbiest like myself who not only enjoys the fish for the hobby but also for the conservation of the species.
Who would supply and insure the survival?
Where would we find them hard to find species that are not found in youre LFS?
Many breeders / LFS buy there stock from either private breeders or commercial breeders. Yes many are imported and there the process starts again.
With the right amount of time,money,experience,species,facility,and desire IMO there is not a species that can't be bred.

Just my 2 fins worth.
Danny

 

[dwarfgourami]

My book (probably out of date) lists the following popular species as not known to have bred in captivity:

flying fox
common pleco (plecostomus plecostomus)
clown loach
upside-down catfish
glass catfish
botia sidthimunki
spiny eel (though I saw a thread either here or on the #### forum with spiny eel spawning in somebody's tank- no fry survived, though)

and I can think you can add the elephantnose fish. What about redtailed black sharks?

I'm sure some of the species listed above have been bred by now but probably not all.

What you want, I suppose, is a fish suitable for most hobbyists (so maybe not the elephantnose, which is sensitive), where the main difficulty lies not in the keeping but in the breeding. Good luck- I like the sound of this! I wish I had the time, money and expertise.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks for all the info everyone; im realy suprised that common plecs havn't been bred in captivity before; i rotate my plecs around alot in my tanks and somtimes i end up with 2 in a tank and they get friendly all the time like little corys although i think they're not mature enough to mate yet.

CAE's(chinese algae eaters) and khuli loaches from what i've gathered havn't been bred in captivity before...

 

[xanthianacid]

Ok, let me rephrase myself a bit; im not having a go at anyone who owns a rare/wild or endangered fish here- im not blaming them at all, all they are doing is buying a fish that is available. But the availability of the fish is what gets me, i don't think half the wild fish out there should be available to buy in the first place.

We have laws against buying wild animals lwithout proper license or license at all like many turtles/frogs/spiders/scorpions for example or animals that you see in zoo's, but i see very few, if any, laws for fish.

Yes, and sometimes thats good. Some licensed people are here in Queensland breeding such things as endangered fish and turtles for the government to ensure if they are wiped out in the wild they will always beable to rely on these breeders to have some healthy specimens that they can reintroduce back into the wild. We might be doing the world a favour by treating our fish well, keeping them alive if they unfortunately come to extinction in the wild, at least we have given ourselves a chance to get them back there.

It goes without saying of course, the more responsible breeders that are doing this kind of thing the better chances there are for the survival of the species.

 

[dwarfgourami]

About koolie loaches, my book says 'rarely bred in capitivity'. I cannot guarantee that the info on the pleco is still correct; I would have thought someone would have had a go by now. It may well be that all the info is totally out. The elephantnose fish is the one I feel most confident has never been bred. But then again, maybe that is a fish that should be reserved for specialists- I get the impression you want a more humane method of procuring the more commonly sold species.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I checked up common plecs on planetcatfish.com and apparently they havn't been bred in captivity yet although they have been known to spawn in muddy river/pond banks.
On the panda cory subject, apparently they have been bred but are a bit harder to do so than your average cory; when i was researching this i found out i have 2male and 1female panda corys so i could get lucky in the future with them

 

[annka5]

Is there not a danger that the fish bred like this will have been caught as juveniles in same area (therefore good chance of being genetically similar) then bred domestically, then this still very limited number of tank-bred specimens are again bred domestically, rapidly resulting in a very very inbred population?
Therefore better a large-scale experimental breeding project - e.g. university research institute level, not 10 domestica aquariums, for a conservation standpoint.
I agree that commercial profitability is the driving force in sourcing most fish imported to hobbyists.
So only way I can see it as being a worthwhile thing is from the point of view of scientific knowledge.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Is there not a danger that the fish bred like this will have been caught as juveniles in same area (therefore good chance of being genetically similar) then bred domestically, then this still very limited number of tank-bred specimens are again bred domestically, rapidly resulting in a very very inbred population?
Therefore better a large-scale experimental breeding project - e.g. university research institute level, not 10 domestica aquariums, for a conservation standpoint.
I agree that commercial profitability is the driving force in sourcing most fish imported to hobbyists.
So only way I can see it as being a worthwhile thing is from the point of view of scientific knowledge.

The populations in the lakes for example(your average lake will hold thousands and thousands of gallons thus thousands of fish) are larger enough to hold large populations of fish without them inbreeding too much; don't you think if what you are suggesting, these fish would have inbred themselves out and become extinct millions of years ago?
What you are suggesting is that people should make no attempt to save species and they should only be used for study and home aquariums, am i right?

 

[pica_nuttalli]

no i think he's implying that even with 10 tanks devoted to breeding a species, you're going to be hard pressed to match the genetic diversity of a lake.

you'd have to start out with guaranteed genetically diverse stock, so you can't just purchase the fish from a single source. next you'd have to have a large enough starting stock to keep the genes from running together too quickly in the subsequent generations, so you'd need anywhere from 20 to 2000 initial fish in your breeding stock. without these two provisions, all the issues that you've found with guppies will probably resurface in this other species.

since such a large scale operation is too much for your average hobbyist to handle, the implication is that only a professional breeder or well-funded academic program could properly devote the resources necessary to begin tank breeding fish which are currently caught in the wild.

however, there is nothing to say that you can't investigate the requirements for a species to tank-breed. i think that's the first step that has to be overcome for commercial breeding to ever be investigated by people with resources. once you know it can be done and how to do it, the only thing left is to convince someone with money that feasibility research is now in order.

 

[OohFeeshy]

If anything out of that lot I'd try khulis. Small, cute, etc. Common plecs get waay to big for most people. Might be something to try actually, do a very detailled biotype and attempt breeding...

 

[annka5]

Obviously wasn't implying that we should do nothing about endangered fish species, and instead let them become extinct, surprisingly I am not a total phsycho (except occasionally). I just don't think that domestically tank-breeding rare specimins will help.
And clearly, I'd have to be insane to think that just becuase there is a finitie number of a given animal in the world it will therefore be inbred. This would make every species in the world inbred, surely? A species can share common distant ancestors and still be genetically diverse.
pica_nuttali put things far more clearly than I did, and in fact I was saying just that.
I'm amazed anyone could conclude that I beleive that all animals in the world are dangerously inbred and that extinction of species is a good thing from what I originally posted, though.