Have You Thought of a Captive Bred Only Tank?

[aws2266]

As global warming gets worse you're gonna see more fish and corals bred in captivity for two reasons. A. Some fish species will go extinct without it. B. People will still want these fish in their livingroms. The cost is gonna go up, see the Yellow Tang. Enjoy the hobby while you can cause before too long you won't have the selection you do today.

 

[Zionas]

I’m okay without the full selection as my goal is healthy fish that I can have for a long time, which is also why I’m very supportive of captive breeding. I’d rather have happy fish and be able to replicate their social structures to the greatest degree possible over just having as many individual species as possible. A pair or harem is a lot more interesting to watch than singles of different species.

I hope we get to captive breed more and more species as time goes on.

I’ve become not so much a believer in heavily stocked tanks anymore. I’d rather have easier maintenance and for the fish to feel comfortable in having more space to swim and mark their territories. That’s a lot harder to do in a heavily stocked tank unless a lot of forethought is put into the rock work, compatibility and stocking order.

When we look at a reef, we don’t see “collections” of fish and corals. The average species diversity on a patch of reef isn’t as high as we think. What’s more important to me is that these fish get to live in pairs, groups etc. that’s natural to them over just having a collection of fish and rainbow corals.

Since I love angels so much I’d hesitate to have any fleshy LPS.

For example, a trio of dwarf angels is much more appealing to me than 3 different species of dwarf angels. A pair of large angels is much more interesting to me than 2 large angels of different species.

Kudos to the people that can pull off heavily stocked tanks and one approach isn’t better than the other, I can totally see how it would be awesome to have a large collection of fish but I’d be much more inclined to try that only in a very large tank especially if multiple Tangs are involved.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

4 out of 5 of my fish are captive bred. They are pretty friendly with each other and they like when I come to the tank, the wild caught yellow watchman stays away from all the other fish and hides when I come too close.

IDK just my general impression but I feel there are more captive bred small fish compared to larger fish, and again just my impression but in Canada I feel the fish for sale are about 50%-60% captive bred

 

[Zionas]

The percentage is that high? Wow. Where in Canada are you and what LFS do you use?

 

[mwilk19]

After a great fish dinner where tons of fish at a time are harvested from the ocean who has time to think about a couple hundred pounds of aquarium fish. What’s your point?

Fisheries around the world may slowly be shut down to the aquarium trade. Hawaii is shut and I doubt that it will ever be opened again. Indonesia shut down for a while but has been reopened for now. There's no guarantee that the fish that are available today will be there in the future. There are some fish that may never be captive bred but I think over time that the majority will.

 

[DrewBR]

Having a full captive bred tank is one of my reefing goals. Right now I only have 1 wild caught fish, a fox face rabbitfish. I'm upgrading tanks and every fish that is planned for the new tank will be captive bred

 

[davidcalgary29]

The percentage is that high? Wow. Where in Canada are you and what LFS do you use?

To be fair, an awful lot of people are just looking for a clownfish tank, so those numbers (if they're representative of the entire country, which they're not) may reflect the fact that almost all of those fish are captive-bred these days.

And most of the dealers with a heavy mail-order presence in this country do skew heavily towards captive-bred when they can.

 

[Zionas]

That’s good to know. The lack of fish meds in Canada would be a bigger concern. What are your captive bred fish? (Sorry if I missed it)

 

[Zionas]

I think the difficulty when captive breeding fish comes from species that are pelagic or mass spawners, rather than fish that pair or form harems.

 

[davidcalgary29]

That’s good to know. The lack of fish meds in Canada would be a bigger concern. What are your captive bred fish? (Sorry if I missed it)

Four orchid dottybacks; a flameback angel; a coral beauty; a filefish; a small goby; a molly miller; navarchus angel; possibly -- but unlikely -- a yellow tang (that fish was rehomed...two other times, from what I know).

Fewer than a third of Canadians live in the Vancouver or Toronto metro areas, so most of us just don't have access to the exotics. There are three brick-and-mortar aquarium stores in Edmonton, which has over a million people in its metro area, and you have to wait for months for something like a multicolor angel to show up. This has been one of my best sources for fish, and this shows the stock from a local store.

 

[hhaase]

I trend more toward captive bred, and would definitely chose a captive bred fish over a wild caught of the same species.... assuming pricing was at least somewhat comparable.

My freshwater has been 100% captive bred for as far back as I can remember. But freshwater is also a lot easier to do. Silly little livebearers are impossible NOT to have breeding in the tank.

 

[Zionas]

I’m not sure if they’ll ship, but I’m going to give you Nuri Fisher’s store details: Look up JL Aquatics in Burnaby. (I am a Simon Fraser grad by the way)

How do your 4 Orchid Dottybacks get along? Do they swim with each other all the time and are they a breeding harem?

Bali Aquarich is the only place that breeds Majestic Angels as far as I know, and currently only Biota breeds Yellow Tangs.

 

[davidcalgary29]

I’m not sure if they’ll ship, but I’m going to give you Nuri Fisher’s store details: Look up JL Aquatics in Burnaby. (I am a Simon Fraser grad by the way)

How do your 4 Orchid Dottybacks get along? Do they swim with each other all the time and are they a breeding harem?

Bali Aquarich is the only place that breeds Majestic Angels as far as I know, and currently only Biota breeds Yellow Tangs.

Biota is breeding navarchus, although stock seems to be pretty limited.

The dottybacks are split up into two different tanks. They made the transition to mated pairs about a month after they put in, as seen by the bickering and squabbling, even though they insist on being with each other. They've been completely peaceful with other fish, though.

I regularly buy from J&L, but not for livestock. Connections between BC and Alberta have been terrible throughout the pandemic, and I'm sure that they're that much more strained with the recent flooding disaster.

 

[underthereef]

Similar idea .
I’ve thought of specific geographic setups .

for example all fish , inverts , rocks everything from one specific location ( indo , Australia , Hawaii , )

Great, now you gave me an awesome idea and valid reason why I need to run 4 different tank setups in the future ;Joyful

 

[i cant think]

4 out of 5 of my fish are captive bred. They are pretty friendly with each other and they like when I come to the tank, the wild caught yellow watchman stays away from all the other fish and hides when I come too close.

IDK just my general impression but I feel there are more captive bred small fish compared to larger fish, and again just my impression but in Canada I feel the fish for sale are about 50%-60% captive bred

Over here (UK) it’s about 10-20% CB fish for sale. And when they are for sale, they’re more expensive than a WC fish. I mean the CB YT is £225-£230 and a WC YT is £210-£215

 

[i cant think]

Similar idea .
I’ve thought of specific geographic setups .

for example all fish , inverts , rocks everything from one specific location ( indo , Australia , Hawaii , )

I’m doing the same thing!! My 4’ tank is going Indonesian dominant with the fish (Coral seem to be very similar around the world). I have 10 or so fish in my tank (around 15-17 total in the house) and only 1 or 2 of them aren’t found around Indonesia so I call them permanent tourists haha

 

[wfournier]

This is something I have been trying to do, at the moment I do have all captive bred fish because there is only one, a flame angel I was lucky enough to get a few years back. I'm upgrading to a larger tank largely to give it some more room and I would like to add some more fish and am finding it hard to stick with captive bred/tank raised. I want to add a wrasse I've seen yellow coris and melanurus listed as have been captive bred or tank raised but have not been able to find them available anywhere. If anyone can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated!

 

[Zionas]

Blue Zoo has tank raised Yellow Coris Wrasses although I have no idea about the source.

 

[i cant think]

This is something I have been trying to do, at the moment I do have all captive bred fish because there is only one, a flame angel I was lucky enough to get a few years back. I'm upgrading to a larger tank largely to give it some more room and I would like to add some more fish and am finding it hard to stick with captive bred/tank raised. I want to add a wrasse I've seen yellow coris and melanurus listed as have been captive bred or tank raised but have not been able to find them available anywhere. If anyone can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated!

This is why I avoid CB only tanks. Yes they’re good but they’re a pain to have since LFS’s tend to get in some beautiful and rare fish that aren’t captive bred. Never knew the flame angels were CB though, are they still being Captive Bred?

 

[ultraArcite]

This is why I avoid CB only tanks. Yes they’re good but they’re a pain to have since LFS’s tend to get in some beautiful and rare fish that aren’t captive bred. Never knew the flame angels were CB though, are they still being Captive Bred?

I did a bunch of research on CB Flame Angels... one guy bred A LOT of them but it seems he has died and didn't tell anyone his secrets.