Yoyo loaches

[Regen311]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this...

I recently added 6 Yoyos to my 55 gallon tank. I have been reading as much as I can find about them, and have read on almost every website that they are not bred in aquaria. If this is the case, where do they come from? Are they all wild caught?

[RoK]

As far as I know, yes, they are all wild caught.

[Regen311]

Now I kind of have mixed feelings about that... It seems like they're pretty popular aquarium fish, so they have to fish a lot of them out. And all that's going through my head is depleting the natural population. Ok, I guess I Think too much. I just have a little bit of a bad feeling in my stomach about buying wild caught fish. I have them now, so yeah, i have them and I love them. ut I can't imagine these little guys were once swimming around in India or wherever they're from. My fish have traveled more than me!

[LandGhoti]

Well, perhaps mating yoyos in the wild are like bunnies, and there are plenty of maturing fry to be caught and kept by the likes of us. Being wild-caught does explain their penchant for liking to swim "upstream" into filters.

I am a think-too-much type too, but as long as I'm giving my fishies a good home, I don't feel guilty.

[jdizzle3id]

I'm pretty sure they're bred in captivity but not in aquariums. From what I've read, there are quite a few fish farms oversees from where many of the aquarium fish are raised. I know bala sharks have a spawning ritual that requires a lot of room for swimming very quickly so an aquarium wouldn't be practical for breeding them.

[Toirtis]

Have a local aquarist here that has had success in spawning yoyos in the past couple of days.

[jinmon]

I had the same funny-stomach feeling when I first realized a lot of fish are wild-caught (and I'm still SO new to this hobby that I reserve the right to change my mind at any time!) - but there was a recent magazine article (aha! Tropical Fish Hobbyist, April) that talked about the lifecycle of cardinal tetras in the wild and how the aquarium hobby doesn't really impact that population, you might have a peek. It's interesting compared to reports of the galaxy rasbora's habitat demolition - I guess I'm just realizing that it's a more complex (and ecosystem-specific) issue than I'd originally thought.