Do you think it is ok to take a wild fish from a river and put it in a tank, or, now that most are tank bred why have wild caught, my question is, how many of you have wild caught fish..........or had them, and why?
When I first got started keeping fish, wild fish were more common because there were very few that were being commercially bred so there was little choice. I believe this made us, back then, better aquarists because in order to have these fish survive, we needed to know how they lived in the wild and had to duplicate those conditions.
As a breeder myself, I know that it is important to re-introduce wild genes back into lines in order to correct genetic flaws that happen from generational inbreeding. Too much of that decreases the vitality of the line. So having wild fish is important for line survival.
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Is it okay to take fish from a river and put it in a tank?" For some species, it's a good thing that happened. Take the red tail shark for example. From what I've read, wild stocks have plummeted and the fish is almost extinct in the wild. Same for a number of new fish that came from the old country Burma. The hobby may have caused the depletion of the specie in it's natural habitat but can also save it from extinction. Keep in mind that habitat destruction will cause more extinctions than overfishing will. If there is no place for the fish to live, being wild doesn't help them. I believe this is the case for many wild rainbowfish.
Having said all this however, you have to realize that most fish sold in shops are man made and not found in nature. For example, only Silver Angelfish are found in the wild but look how many varieties there are of this fish. Same with Swordtails and Mollies and Guppies. Only one color ( 2 for Mollies) exists in the wild yet how many different colors are found in the stores. Another example is in the Gourami Family. Blue (3 spot) gouramis are natural but Golds, Opalines & Lavenders are all man made color morphs of the blue and not found in nature. Same with Dwarf Gouramis. Neons, Sunsets, Flames, Powder Blues are all non natural colors of the fish and not found in the wild. And we should bring up bettas here as well. Maybe 1/2 of 1% have any similarities to their wild ancestors. However, if wild ones were not taken and kept in tanks, these other fish wouldn't exist. And this is a very short list of non wild fish that we keep today.
There is a line however (IMO), that mustn't be crossed when it comes to taking wild stock. Sustainable harvesting must be done and not generalized harvesting. A strong breeding population must be left alone to continue the specie's survival. This is what's been found in collecting cardinal tetras in the wild. In a recent documentary I saw ( I forget if it was on TV or Youtube) the collectors of cardinals manage multiple pools where these wild fish are found. Fish are collected from pools up to the point where the remaining fish can still repopulate the pools. No further harvesting happens until the population has rebounded. So these are wild fish in natural pools that are man managed and still thriving. Neon Tetras are mostly tank bred as they have not been as well managed in the wild. I believe I read that only 5% of neons in the trade in America are wild stock and these are mostly green neons.
So is it okay to collect wild fish and keep them in tanks? I believe it is if the collector is collection friendly, the hobbyist is a concerned hobbyist trying to learn about their fishes and keep them in the best conditions possible and the specie can survive with the depletion of those collected. I also believe that it's necessary as well that fish ( as well as other animals) be selectively collected in order for us to better learn how to properly care for them in the wild while we humans seem to overtake their habitat in a seemingly limitless way.
That's my take on the subject