Fish Tank biotope/style popularity

[Beastije]

Just my opinion, but given people here are long time fish keepers too, maybe you will be able to confirm my suspicion.
I think fish keeping as a hobby is somehow being controlled by some things ( I guess the suppliers) in waves and it is the same as in any hobby
I mean like pet breeds are becoming popular after some movies (think Lassie), I feel fishkeeping is really the same, but people still think they have a choice in what fish are they getting.

10 years ago when I started everywhere around me people were getting malawi and tanganyika cichlids and everyone had limestones and these fish. Now almost everyone has south america, special cichlids, special tetras. 20 years back it was guppies and their forms, now they are still there, but special, wild caught forms.

When I look at other fishtanks that people have, 90% of them at this point have a south america one. Same goes with bettas, basically nobody had a betta 20 years ago, only few people had bettas 10 years ago, now everybody has or had in the past 5 years a betta.
Is it just me or is it not really our choice what we keep? is it the issue of we see other tanks and like it and want to replicate it? Or is it what is available in the stores. That might be for newbies, but what about the other people that order special fish and have almost every type of fish available. Sure water params might be the difference, but even in SA or Asia you get fish from one end of the spectrum and fish from the other, so that is not it.
I just dont understand it

 

[Colin_T]

Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish) have been popular since before the 70s. I had a fish book from 1922 that had a section on keeping Siamese fighting fish in bowls. They had a very nice looking fish in a glass bowl that was heated by a candle. It was in black and white but you could tell what it was. But betta splendens has been popular for decades and we used to sell hundreds of them every week in the pet shops (between the mid 1980s-2005).

People see some fancy fish and like it so they set up a tank for it. Some time later they see another fancy fish and want it, so they either add it to the tank they have, or get rid of their old fish and buy the new one/s. If they are really into fish, they buy more tanks and have a fish room

Having said all this, the Asian breeders do promote new species and colour forms, think electric blue acaras. They made them and bred them in quantities, and put them on the market for the world to see. Low and behold, lots of people want them because they are different. The flowerhorn cichlid is another. People like them and then everyone wants them.

The chain pet stores are also limiting what people can buy. The shops have access to a huge variety of fishes but only buy in a few bread and butter types that sell readily (guppies, neon tetras, angelfish). If you want unusual fish, you ask them to look on their supply list and hope they will order the wired and wonderful in for you. Some stores will, some won't.

I used to keep fish that interested me and most shops had never heard of them, let alone carry them. I looked around and spoke to various suppliers and some spoke to their suppliers overseas, and before long I got what I wanted. I also went out into the wild and caught my own fish a few times because you couldn't buy them.

 

[Lajos_Detari]

Just my opinion, but given people here are long time fish keepers too, maybe you will be able to confirm my suspicion.
I think fish keeping as a hobby is somehow being controlled by some things ( I guess the suppliers) in waves and it is the same as in any hobby
I mean like pet breeds are becoming popular after some movies (think Lassie), I feel fishkeeping is really the same, but people still think they have a choice in what fish are they getting.

10 years ago when I started everywhere around me people were getting malawi and tanganyika cichlids and everyone had limestones and these fish. Now almost everyone has south america, special cichlids, special tetras. 20 years back it was guppies and their forms, now they are still there, but special, wild caught forms.

When I look at other fishtanks that people have, 90% of them at this point have a south america one. Same goes with bettas, basically nobody had a betta 20 years ago, only few people had bettas 10 years ago, now everybody has or had in the past 5 years a betta.
Is it just me or is it not really our choice what we keep? is it the issue of we see other tanks and like it and want to replicate it? Or is it what is available in the stores. That might be for newbies, but what about the other people that order special fish and have almost every type of fish available. Sure water params might be the difference, but even in SA or Asia you get fish from one end of the spectrum and fish from the other, so that is not it.
I just dont understand it

You are right to say that the majority of people will follow the trend of the markets - what are commonly available or most popular in the market.

But for those experienced fish keepers, they won't be satisfied with what are being offered in the market.
They will look for fish that interest them the most or the wild caught fish as what Colin had mentioned the above.
Experienced fish keepers will look for something special, interesting, unique and usually not so commonly available.

As for myself, I restarted keeping fish not long ago and I tried keeping many species that are available in the market(South America, Asia, Africa and Central America, etc fish).
Recently, I became bored with some of my fish. So, I gave away most of my fish to my friends and I restarted again with fish that I find more interesting and unique.

I also try to focus on bigger fish that have longer lifespan and are more hardy and less vulnerable to diseases.

The fish cost is also another factor when I consider buying new fish since my interest keeps changing and don't last very long.

Some wild caught fish can be very expensive like the Frontosa from Zaire, Discus and Pleco from South America.
Rare species of Apistogrammas are also expensive and not available all the time.

Some fish like Arowana and Stingray are very expensive especially for those with unique colours. Only those fish keepers who can afford and willing to spend will buy them.

Farms bred Discus, Bettas, Guppies with unique colours and fins are also not cheap.
But more and more people are buying them despite their high prices.

Shrimps, crayfish with unique colours and patterns can cost up to $1000 per piece.

Lastly, I think rare marine fish are still the most expensive.

 

[GaryE]

There are fashions in everything. Right now, my friends in the business say people want larger predatory fish. The smaller types I like are selling less.

But in countries like the US, the large chains control availability, and they want very cheap fish that they can do large markups on. They tend to have exactly the same fish in every store, as they bulk purchase and centrally distribute. You would swear there were very few fish in the tropics if all you ever saw was the choices they sell.

Importers are in a bind as fuel costs have quadrupled shipping costs in some areas, and those costs have to be factored into prices. When you combine that with a conservative buying public who aren't very curious, supply is narrowing fast. I think we'll see a resurgence of fancy forms, hybrids and GMO fish over natural species, because the former are cheap to to buy for stores, and they can get a good price.

When I started really getting into the hobby, Malawis and Tanganyikans were new discoveries and they were hot. In our aquarium club, probably 80% of people kept and bred them. Then people got bored as the novelty wore off, and we had a golden age of dwarf Cichlids. Then livebearers made a comeback, and Asian fish caught on for a bit, before the larger catfish craze. Then came shrimp, glofish and predators.

I hope that with the sustainable local fisheries and the enormous diversity of "new" species being discovered, we'll have a Corydoras hobby happening, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

A local importer has stopped ordering Apistos because only the linebred unnatural ones are selling. If he orders beautiful wilds people are unfamiliar with, they don't even ask what they are. 25 years ago, he couldn't keep them in stock for a week, they sold so fast.

A key change is the internet. I can look up any fish that interests me in a moment, but it has to interest me first. In the book era, aquarists bought 500 page books that were like information catalogues on fish, and that drove an interest in finding things that weren't necessarily in stores. Those books were excellent bathroom reading... something like the Baensch Atlas with one page per species, full of info was great. Importers had hobbyists asking for things, and they had to diversify. That culture vanished only about 15 years ago.

Add to that our dying aquarium club culture, and you have a recipe for a fish hobby version of McDonalds.

Will the pendulum swing around? That's on us, really. It'll swing in some direction, for sure. Right now, the biggest area of growth in the hobby is in China, and that brings changes we can't predict in the west.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Tbh I am not one for following the latest craze or fashion in any aspect of life...and that is the same with fishkeeping

While I agree there are often fads and fazes where specific fish seem to be the "must have", I personally am against that....especially where it involves overbred, GM/injected fish

I prefer to have fish that come as nature intended

Boring to some, perhaps, but to me an unmessed with fishy is a happy and healthy fishy....my 53 gallon may, on the face of it, look an absolute hodge podge of different hooligans that on paper probably shouldn't co-exist in the same aquarium but you just try telling them that.

Not a single human intervention anywhere (apart from my interuptions to clean up after them) and breeding marvelously (OK maybe a little too marvelously)

As for Fred.....I have no idea where he came from since I adopted him from a now passed neighbour. That said his colouring is glorious and being a short finned Betta, he is like a little torpedo with attitude to match and I would not change him for the world

My fish aren't everyone's cup of tea, they aren't always well behaved (they bite me - or gum me - when I do their manitenance and they constantly rearrange their scape)...but they are happy, healthy and totally full of charm and character and I love 'em to bits

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

A local importer has stopped ordering Apistos because only the linebred unnatural ones are selling. If he orders beautiful wilds people are unfamiliar with, they don't even ask what they are. 25 years ago, he couldn't keep them in stock for a week, they sold so fast.

I would really like to have a pair of the Apistogramma agassizi "fire red" one day - I'm guessing the fact it's a colour variant means it's an unnatural linebred one?

 

[Naughts]

I would really like to have a pair of the Apistogramma agassizi "fire red" one day - I'm guessing the fact it's a colour variant means it's an unnatural linebred one?

Yes, a captive bred colour-morph.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Yes, a captive bred colour-morph.

Dang! Apistos appeal to me, and when I saw that variety in a store, I was completely captivated, and they've been my favourites since.

 

[Naughts]

Dang! Apistos appeal to me, and when I saw that variety in a store, I was completely captivated, and they've been my favourites since.

My apisto macmasteri are a colour morph.

 

[GaryE]

Honestly, it's been about 10 years since I saw wild type Apistos in any store. Borellii opals, aga reds, cacatuoides double, and triple reds, some of the mcmasteri and, cruelly, veijitas... almost all have been "improved" by central European breeders.

Sometimes the changes produced are minor - like with veijita, hongsloi or mcmasteri.

 

[Back in the fold]

Then there are guys like me with plain , drab , crummy little tanks , plants that always eventually die but healthy fish. Almost always the old standbys like Golden Wonder Killies and Convict cichlids and zebra danios and guppies and $5 Betta's. I'm happy.