The best thing I have done in my fishkeeping hobby is to breed my fish. I think it's something all hobbyists who have gotten beyond the basics of fishkeeping should investigate. Why?
I just read an article about my favourite fish, a small, rare killifish called Aphyosemion zygaima. They were brought into the hobby from the Republic of Congo once, in 1989. I got a pair in 1992. I liked them, and reading up showed them to be rare and almost lost to the hobby. So I battled with breeding them (they are not easy) and learned a huge amount about fish in the process. I've shared out as many eggs and pairs as I could, and the fish became established in the little niche hobby of killiekeeping.
The article I read talks of how they were recently found again, in a restricted habitat of one narrow, short stream hemmed in by natural features and agricultural industry. I doubt they will ever come out of the region again, and only under a dozen individuals were brought out to be bred in captivity. In the 30 plus years since they were previously ocated, the habitat had shrunk radically. I suspect they may be doomed.
So hopefully, hobbyists will breed them, and what seems to be a very ancient species will have an aquarium population as a sort of monument to what it once was. The habitats of our favourite fish are being destroyed at a galloping pace, and the fate of this little rarity will be repeated more and more with species we now think of as common and easily replaced. There are natural populations of many fish that are managed by local communities who live from selling them, especially in Amazonia. Our hobby supports subsistence fisheries in many places, and that is a great positive.
A lot of us want someone else to save species for us, and think captive bred fish from farms are a better option. The problem is that fish farms exist only for profit, and there is money in hybridization (which reduces diversity) and industrial type processes that make for very sickly products. Diseases spread in crowding, and it's clear the commercial farming set ups can't maintain species or species diversity in the face of that.
If you're looking for something to do with your hobby, consider networking. It is unfashionable to meet other people these days, but unless we band together around our favourite species to breed them, and to create alternative sourcees of healthy stock, our hobby will have a very short run. We might want to think about joining real fish clubs (or starting them) and resurrecting the dying national specialty clubs. If we continue to allow our hobby to evolve into an online store customer system, and give up on sharing species and producing our own unprofitable fish for the love of seeing them, it'll be lights out for many of the reasons we keep fish in the first place. There will be no reason to keep the fish we'll have available.
So consider gaining some skills. Consider breeding and learning how to share out the species you admire. It would be a big project involving many many people, but it starts with making connections.
I just read an article about my favourite fish, a small, rare killifish called Aphyosemion zygaima. They were brought into the hobby from the Republic of Congo once, in 1989. I got a pair in 1992. I liked them, and reading up showed them to be rare and almost lost to the hobby. So I battled with breeding them (they are not easy) and learned a huge amount about fish in the process. I've shared out as many eggs and pairs as I could, and the fish became established in the little niche hobby of killiekeeping.
The article I read talks of how they were recently found again, in a restricted habitat of one narrow, short stream hemmed in by natural features and agricultural industry. I doubt they will ever come out of the region again, and only under a dozen individuals were brought out to be bred in captivity. In the 30 plus years since they were previously ocated, the habitat had shrunk radically. I suspect they may be doomed.
So hopefully, hobbyists will breed them, and what seems to be a very ancient species will have an aquarium population as a sort of monument to what it once was. The habitats of our favourite fish are being destroyed at a galloping pace, and the fate of this little rarity will be repeated more and more with species we now think of as common and easily replaced. There are natural populations of many fish that are managed by local communities who live from selling them, especially in Amazonia. Our hobby supports subsistence fisheries in many places, and that is a great positive.
A lot of us want someone else to save species for us, and think captive bred fish from farms are a better option. The problem is that fish farms exist only for profit, and there is money in hybridization (which reduces diversity) and industrial type processes that make for very sickly products. Diseases spread in crowding, and it's clear the commercial farming set ups can't maintain species or species diversity in the face of that.
If you're looking for something to do with your hobby, consider networking. It is unfashionable to meet other people these days, but unless we band together around our favourite species to breed them, and to create alternative sourcees of healthy stock, our hobby will have a very short run. We might want to think about joining real fish clubs (or starting them) and resurrecting the dying national specialty clubs. If we continue to allow our hobby to evolve into an online store customer system, and give up on sharing species and producing our own unprofitable fish for the love of seeing them, it'll be lights out for many of the reasons we keep fish in the first place. There will be no reason to keep the fish we'll have available.
So consider gaining some skills. Consider breeding and learning how to share out the species you admire. It would be a big project involving many many people, but it starts with making connections.
