Is it wrong to keep wild-caught fish?

[CFC]

My arowana (Australian) is one of the few captive bred fish i have, also anyone who owns a Asian arowana is the owner of a captive bred fish as it is illegal to own wild caught ones, all the silver arowana's we see in the trade have also been captive bred in large dirt ponds in the far east. Infact the only wild caught arowana's we see are the black and "blue" arowana's which are suprisingly not as expensive as their Australian and Asian farm bred cousins.

If it were not for wild caught fish there would be no catfish available apart from common and sailfin plecs, bristlenoses, a few species of Corydoras and maybe a couple of L numbers (such as the zebra plec), oh and the giant cats like Pangasius catfish, Redtailed cats and tigershovelnoses which are raised in dirt ponds as food fish. You could forget seeing any oddballs either and most tetras would be off the list, neons and glowlights are about the only routinely captive farm bred tetras i can think of.
Funnily enough most of the fish that people dont like to see for sale would still be available, bala sharks are all captive bred as are tinfoil barbs and pacu's.
Without wild caught fish the fish keeping hobby would be very boring and would not attract nearly as many people to take it up, shops would have to close and prices of equipment and dried goods would skyrocket.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Im not calling for a ban on wild fish and never was- i don't think i've said that anywhere, all i have mentioned is alot of wild caught fish find it difficult settling into aquarium life and have extra needs than tank bred fish, and recently that you shouldn't have to have rare wild fish just to be interested in the hobby. I can quote some of my stuff if anyone wants. I voted for none of the above options as there are some wild caught fish i don't have a problem with but others i do, i don't lean to either side on an outright ban or legallisation of wild fish.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

Ok I firstly will admit to not reading all the posts, but most of them.
It is almost impossible to get fish that aren't wild caught, but then alot of lfs's simply won't take in fry from local breeders, more's the pity. I'm lucky enough in that 3 of my synos are captive bred and I got them very young but the others I suspect are all wild caught, and worse still, have been pushed from pillar to post between homes when they've gotten too big for their tanks.
I shan't move them at all, ever if I can get away with it (ie, not move house etc) and despite only being here for around 6 weeks I'm seeing some interaction from my biggest girl and the older male. Bless him, he is persistent. But they do have plenty of space and a very varied diet. (Catfish pellets, Flake food (actually for the the platies and angels but meh) live brine shrimp, bloodworm, freezedried daphnia, bloodworm etc etc even some veg are offered although they never touch it.)
I wouldn't go out my way to get rare or endangered species unless someone was getting rid of some and I could provide the right type of home for them.
Hugs,
P.

 

[Synirr]

Your average mog has less intelligence than a chicken- did you notice that?
Guppys for example have recently been disocovered to have complex social lives and be more intelligent than once granted for and were even featured in a bbc article;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3009170.stm

[snapback]902043[/snapback]​

What's a mog? I'm too American to know

I'm no trying to pick on you, but I just figured I'd point out that complex social behaviour does not equate to intelligence. For example, I think we can all agree that fiddler crabs aren't exactly the brainiest of creatures, but male fiddler crabs will sometimes help a neighbor protect his burrow from an invading fiddler, which is a pretty darn complex behaviour for the lowly fiddler crab. The theory is that the male crab prefers to have neighbors less powerful than himself so that he can easily out-compete them for food, territory, and mating partners; so if a crab that is a potential rival tries to take over the territory of one of his weaker neighbors, he will help his neighbor out in order to stay top dog on the mud flats.

 

[CFC]

Ok I firstly will admit to not reading all the posts, but most of them.
It is almost impossible to get fish that aren't wild caught, but then alot of lfs's simply won't take in fry from local breeders, more's the pity. I'm lucky enough in that 3 of my synos are captive bred and I got them very young but the others I suspect are all wild caught, and worse still, have been pushed from pillar to post between homes when they've gotten too big for their tanks.
I shan't move them at all, ever if I can get away with it (ie, not move house etc) and despite only being here for around 6 weeks I'm seeing some interaction from my biggest girl and the older male. Bless him, he is persistent. But they do have plenty of space and a very varied diet. (Catfish pellets, Flake food (actually for the the platies and angels but meh) live brine shrimp, bloodworm, freezedried daphnia, bloodworm etc etc even some veg are offered although they never touch it.)
I wouldn't go out my way to get rare or endangered species unless someone was getting rid of some and I could provide the right type of home for them.
Hugs,
P.

[snapback]902191[/snapback]​

Which species are your Synodontis? Only two species of Synodontis are truely captive bred and these are Synodontis angelicus (farmed in the far east) and Synodontis nigriventris, all others with the exception of Synodontis granulosus which has been produced in Chezch laboratories (yes it is worth it for a fish that sells at £300 a pop) will have been wild caught.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Your average mog has less intelligence than a chicken- did you notice that?
Guppys for example have recently been disocovered to have complex social lives and be more intelligent than once granted for and were even featured in a bbc article;

http/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3009170.stm

[snapback]902043[/snapback]​

What's a mog? I'm too American to know


Heh, its a cat

 

[CFC]

sneaky matings eh, who would have thought guppies were sexual deviants