Tropical Fish Regulation?

[benjoey]

I was just wondering whether fish or more specifically tropical fish are regulated by anyone? My main reason for this is that I don't want to buy any fish which could be endangered or caught in a way which is damaging or having a negative efffect on the environment/ecosystem. Preferably I would like to buy tank bred fish, do people have any insights on how common tank bred fish are at retailers?

 

[angelfishguy]

id imagine most fish are tank bred just due to the fact if they were wild it would say so because they seem to charge more for wild fish,

could be wrong though

 

[Sean W.]

plus its a lot more difficult to catch fish wild with out hurting them or killing them then just breeding them

 

[benjoey]

yeh I suppose that they would be more expensive I would imagine it would be cheaper to breed them than catch them in the wild and import then

 

[OohFeeshy]

Depends on the fish, the availability in the wild and how easy they are to breed.

 

[Davo86]

Actually a lot of fish are wild caught, much more than you would realise

 

[Mikaila31]

yes it all depends on species. We have commonly available wild fish and commonly available farm raised fish. The aquarium industry is defiantly a threat to these. Some of the fish we keep a certainly endangered or threatened in the wild, the aquarium fish of these species are farm raised. They don't count as wild populations. Things like the WCMM are very endangered in the wild, but there are many millions in the aquarium trade. The boesemani rainbow is also endangered, which is odd, because it is sometimes listed on importers lists as wild caught.... usually they can't provide a collection source for it though, so who knows.

The galaxy rasbora is probably the most recent one. I think we found this species in 2005... within a year it was almost wiped out in the wild and its habitat had considerable damage done to it from collecting. It is now endangered do to overcollecting. Most are tank bred now, but the wild populations may never recover from the damage.

edit: the galaxy rasbora is a kinda special case too. It has a very small wide range and was "THE" new species of its year. It was in very high demand, with fish going for $30 in the beginning. It was also in a less developed country. I believe we did not even know where it was coming from for a while, as exporters don't like to tell you that stuff with high demand fish. Less developed countries are also less likely to protect natural resources. The USA did it, its hard to tell other countries to stop after we have done the same.

All our species came from wild fish at one point, that is inescapable. I have wild caught panda garras, though these fish are just starting to be tank bred. The price either way is still pretty high. Collecting is time consuming as they live in rivers and are good at hiding under rocks... they are also not in very high demand either.

The aquarium industry has a very significant impact on the fish we keep. Even with fish that can be tank raised you occasionally want to reintroduce wild genes into the captive stock to maintain the genes of the captive stock. Marine collecting for the aquarium industry is a big issue lately, and is most likely just as or more damaging than tropical collecting.

 

[chrisbassist]

with trees they plant new ones when they cut others down, maybe they should do a similar thing with fish? taking wild ones out means a debt to be repaid, and add some back to the wild once you get them starting to breed...

 

[england]

yes alot still are caught straight from the rivers into containers, kept in containers on boats sometimes for weeks,then do a docking station where there packed,de ported and shipped round the world, lots do not make it "only the strong survive" yes people home breed some fish now and there are alot of places now which are fish farms,specially in asia and places like...