LFS claimed wild caught fishes are better

[PFoster]

CB clowns are much more hardy to our aquariums. Now putting a CB clown back into the wild... probably not the best idea but I dont think too many people in Canada will be doing this :P

WC often come in with diseases.

That being said the store owner was correct with respect to SOME of the CB clowns. Clowns are currently being bead just about everywhere; sri lanka isreal, Indo, USA, canada etc.
Typically the ones from overseas are WAY cheaper but their color is also VERY poor and they dont seem to be very hardy at all.
The orange in these clowns is more of a yellow.
The white is drab and the black is almost non existent.

I would guess that his experiences with respect to CB clowns is based on the ones ordered from overseas, in which case he is absolutely correct.
But good quality clowns from just about anywhere in North America are WAY better than wilds IMO.

[Snaz]

Psuedochromis fridmani aka Orchid Dottyback is often bred in captivity and makes a great addition to most tanks.

Here is my CB dotty:

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by Snaz

Lovely. Have you noticed any obvious visual differences between the CB and the WC?

[Snaz]

Originally Posted by Enigma

Lovely. Have you noticed any obvious visual differences between the CB and the WC?

This one's tailfin is transparent at the top which I thought looked unique and why I picked her... I doubt this variation is a result of CB though.

[mrhasan]

Maybe the genes ran short of the color

[Myka]

I'm having a really hard time with this thread. It really makes me want to choke someone who would suggest a hobbyist buy a wild caught fish over a captive bred fish.

I would rather kill 100 captive bred fish than kill 1 wild caught fish. Once a fish is taken from the wild it can never be returned. Just in the most recent years has there been some interest in sustainable collection, although the definition of "sustainable" isn't particularly clear yet since there are so many different regions and ecosystems within ecosystems all over the worlds' reefs.

As others already pointed out, there are many fish that die long before they make it to the LFS display tank. Consumers often know little about the journey a fish takes from the ocean to their display tank, and seem to forget about all the fish that don't make it simply because the consumer doesn't see them! Wild caught Clownfish and Dottybacks, which are both easily found captive bred, are both particularly susceptible to Brooklynella. Wild Banggai Cardinals are suspected to often perish from a viral diease that we are just learning about recently and currently. ORA has over 50 different species of fish on their availability list, so there are lots to choose from. Sustainable Aquatics has notoriously LOVELY colored fish. Captive bred fish with poor coloring are a result of poor growout husbandry and nutrition.

For those LFS that claim they lose more captive bred fish than wild caught fish, they need new CB suppliers! A good CB supplier (inc hobbyist breeders) will guarantee their fish. A CB supplier that doesn't guarantee the health of their fish should not be dealt with imo. Even ORA replaces DOAs in my experiences. I've even had ORA replace "designer" clowns (read: expensive clowns) that did poorly upon arrival and perished when the rest of the order did great. ORA is a good company to deal with. I would rather see no captive bred fish in an LFS rather than poor captive bred fish since poor CB fish make a bad name for the whole lot of them.

In my opinion, unless you are a breeder you should not be purchasing many species of wild caught fish including (but not limited to): Banggai Cardinals, Clownfish, Dottybacks, Elacatinus sp Gobies, Assessors, and many Blennies.

If people are having poor luck with their captive bred fish, the sour look should be placed upon the breeder (or possibly the LFS if they have poor husbandry), not the fish itself. There is no reason a captive bred fish should be inferior to a wild caught fish. In my experiences and in my opinion, captive bred fish are superior to wild caught fish given an even playing field!

[Reef_Geek]

I understand your sentiment and am sympathetic to your vision. I was the broodstock manager at Proaquatix and have worked with Bill, Arlene, and Katy (the Addisons) at C-Quest. Certainly one extreme is a hobbyist's choice in strictly captive bred. However, there are fish that are abundant such as Royal Grammas, Chromis, shrimps etc... and there are fish caught from areas with effective management through regulations and meaningful enforcement (eg Hawaii, Florida)... and then the other extreme are fish caught with destructive practices, no regulations, or regulations without enforcement... or species that have no reasonableness as pets (eg some diet-specific inverts like starfishes or slugs, butterflies etc). So there's every shade of gray in between these scenarios, and then there's the reality of the market and aquaculture. Costs are high in operations, many species are not economically feasible, bulk of hobbyists have a certain threshold of willingness to pay, and then there's what people want. For example, we'd never have tank raised turbo snails or blue legged hermits due to abundance of cheap wild specimens, but most tanks will want/need them. Realistically, we'd likely always have hobbyists wanting pygmy angels and tangs... it's just what people want.

So in between, there's lots of variations. Just as some folks will choose to be vegan for moral reasons, bulk of consumers are naturally omnivorous.

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by PFoster

CB clowns are much more hardy to our aquariums. Now putting a CB clown back into the wild... probably not the best idea but I dont think too many people in Canada will be doing this :P

WC often come in with diseases.

That being said the store owner was correct with respect to SOME of the CB clowns. Clowns are currently being bead just about everywhere; sri lanka isreal, Indo, USA, canada etc.
Typically the ones from overseas are WAY cheaper but their color is also VERY poor and they dont seem to be very hardy at all.
The orange in these clowns is more of a yellow.
The white is drab and the black is almost non existent.

I would guess that his experiences with respect to CB clowns is based on the ones ordered from overseas, in which case he is absolutely correct.
But good quality clowns from just about anywhere in North America are WAY better than wilds IMO.

I've lost two CB occ. clowns. But, here are the two who remain . . .



The gorgeous orange one is from a breeder here in Calgary, and was purchased by me at Red Coral. I don't know who the breeder is (the breeder sold to Red Coral and not to me) but his colours are amazing. He looks a bit like he's had some black airbrushed along his spine.

I did notice washed out CB clowns at Piscies the other day. They did look very yellow. They were no where near as nice as our little Nemo, and I figured they all had to be sick with something.

I don't know where the black occ. was bred, but it is a very nice specimen, too.

[mrhasan]

^ Those are some really nice CB! I never saw a CB clown with that bright color. Not only pisces but Big Al's CBs are also on the yellow side instead of being red.

BTW how's the price tag in Red coral? Never been there since I am more into Big Al's since they are more reasonably priced compared to Pisces.

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

^ Those are some really nice CB! I never saw a CB clown with that bright color. Not only pisces but Big Al's CBs are also on the yellow side instead of being red.

BTW how's the price tag in Red coral? Never been there since I am more into Big Al's since they are more reasonably priced compared to Pisces.

I paid $15 for him, as he was tiny at the time. They had some Vancouver bred ones that were a smidge bigger than this guy and his siblings, and they were the same price. The Vancouver ones were very nice, too.

His colour has become more vibrant as he's aged. He didn't look like that in the store. He's still quite little maybe around 1.5" . . . He's almost doubled in size since I got him. I did lose another one that I bought at the same time, from the same batch.