The Baron

Hi all.

Wanted to know the benefits if any of buying juvenile wilds versus
tank raised?

I can get wilds here easily, but locals imports are garbage from Asia.

Are wilds more sensitive than locals?

Thanks,

Dan

Jaysee

IME local tank bread are much healthier. Wild caught fish take longer to show their colors, and because of this many times they are pumped full of horomones to MAKE them show their color.

aquarist48

Hello TheBaron and Welcome to Fish Lore. Wild caught could host parasites and should be treated for such prior to going into your tank. I'm sure you'll get some more responses as well.
Ken

TedsTank

Wild caught are preferred by many cichlid fans. Aqarist48 is correct about disease and parasites. A reputable importer/dealer will have them acclimated and treated before releasing to the market.

For some it is important to keep the pure strains pure. For the average home aquarium domestic bred are better and stronger for different water parameters. RAMS from the wild are of course one of the warm, soft water, acidic water fish. With wild caught you really dont know their ages unless you are buying F-1 fish...which technically are domestic, but are direct from wild caught.

Species keepers often use domestic fish and then periodically back cross them to wild caught. There is a lot of inbreeding going on with all the different hybrids now.

So on the average... Domestic are tougher, and safer.
Baron, for your availability issues, Wild would be fun, depending on $$$ and if you spawned them the young would be acclimated better for your tank parameters.
The regular GBR name used is a marketing name for the natural domestic RAM.

Slug

I disagree totally on this. Wild fish are often, much healthier then tank raised fish, we as aquarists just fail to use proper acclimation techniques (I will say that this can be tough as its sometimes hard to recreate wild-like conditions, but not impossible), they die, and we blame it on them being wild caught. The wild has already culled the weak ones for us. Domestic fish are line bred in bad conditions at wholesaler facilities who don't care about bloodlines, genes, or the strain itself.

You gotta ask yourself, why do domestic rams need to be crossed back to wild ones? If they were healthy and had strong bloodlines to begin with there would be no need. Wilds strengthen the strain, hence the reason I believe that saying domestics are stronger is a myth.

Sensitive? Yes, Stronger? No. As long as you can properly acclimate them to your water, go for the wilds IMO.

Just my

TedsTank

Well Matt, we have a yes and no situation here. For the average aquarist I believe they are better off with domestic bred.
Outcrossing is to strenghen the strains. After generation of breedings many "sensitive" fish are able today to adapt to more varied water parameters. Wild caught can be acclimated to live, but are are not always at their best and spawning them is a whole different matter.
With the dwarf cichlids, my thing, wild caught cannot produce viable spawn at average tank parameters. Your Discus (and mine) require a certain range of water parameters although they can live outside that range. Example: the apistogramma Cacatuoides (cockatoo chichlids) are now able to be kept in a wide range of aquarium parameters....wild caught will only survive and spawn in very limited water parameter conditions....cannot be acclimated to be who they really are, multiply, and live a normal life span.

It depends on aquarists keeping an average mixed fish community tank or specializing.

My post was in answer to Barons question...as a fish newbie.

Average will do better with domestic bred, to have the fish, and buying from reputable dealers or LFS.

The Baron

Well, this is turning into an interesting post.

I have kept fish for many years and have sold more Angels to lfs than i can remember so I do have some experience with the hobby.

All I know, is that in the past when I bought rams locally, they all turned out to be Asian and they would last for a short time and die.

All my other fish were fine and the water conditions are suited to sa cichlids.

I never tried wild rams and the fish store that has them has had them for a couple of weeks already and are young. Maybe an 1 to 1.5 inches. Really no color yet which doesnt surprise me.

I have always belived that wilds may be at least as hardy as locals but then it depends on how they were raised and in what kind of conditions.

Pricing is the same as asian.

FYI, I am also thinking of getting some wild apisto's here are well. Not sure yet. Same story wild versus local. Local breds are rare here.

Any more opinions

Thanks,

Dan

btate617

First off wild fish are not pumped full of to bring out color. Not sure where that came from, but that is a new one.
Rams are a pretty sensitive species to begin with, main thing to do is match the pH of the water they are coming from, so whatever the shop has them in try to match it. You can always alter it slowly to what you like after you have them for awhile.

I agree domestic fish are not stronger than wilds, use to a wilder range of conditions yes for sure. Wild fish will slowly adapt to a wild range of peram also, however you need to do it very slowly. The biggest problems you will have with wilds is if you want to breed them, they may live in different conditions but many need specific requirements to breed. Even Apisto's in my experience can be kept in a wide range of water however breeding requires a small range or they just won't do it.

"outcrossing" as it was put is a good idea, but not always needed. If you have a pair of wild fish and you breed them you have F1 fry, and everytime you breed that same pair you will have F1 fry. The problem is letting those fry mature and then breeding them back to one of the parents, its like sleeping with your sister, you won't get the best outcome. If you continue to breed those wild parents no problem, just don't let the fry into their little party. Now with domestics, either from a hobbiest or a big farm, the problem here is most breed the fish back and forth fry to parents and so on. Look at lots of the guppies you see in LFS great example with the crappy colors on some. If you breed domestic fish I believe it is a good idea to once in awhile introduce another fish of the same species to your breeding group. This brings in different blood lines and will help. Back to wilds with the wild parents you breed them and get F1's. Now let those F1's grow and pair and they breed now you have F2's and so on. Same problem here you are breeding the same batch of fry back to eachother, eventually if this continues you will start to see problems.

I try to seek wild and F1 fish so I have a fish with its natural coloring and so on, however there is nothing wrong with domestic fish, I just try for wilds. And some people are dead set against wilds. But I will agree with Slug I don't know where the deal with wilds being weak came from but it really is silly. Most of the times you see wilds in a store, which be careful some are not what they seem, there color is dull as they throw them in whatever param their tanks are at, you would stress and lose color also.

Brian

TedsTank

These comments were worded by me in reference to the question asked by The Baron....with no tank or setup info provided....unless he is doing a SA setup...his best bet would be to go with young domestics.

Well i guess I can't expain it properly...I think we all pretty much agree. I mostly tried to make my statement to apply to ram question. And they are considered a sensitive fish in some circles and they don't have a particularly long life span. When you get wild caught fish....not F1's, the average person buys a pretty fish for their community tank is likely to have more problems than buying domestically bred fish. If you can get wild caught for the same $$ as domestic....I personally will go for the wild's...but my tanks set ups is for soft, acid water for the apisto's.

I think Matt and I were having a confusion....I do not believe that all fish problems can be solved thru acclimation and I don't think he meant that exactly either.
Wilds being weak, (maybe more sensitive would be better) was meant by me not to mean inferior...but much harder and longer to adapt to your tank conditions.....all this in reference to this forum, and buying fish that are pretty and adding them into your tank. and I am still not wording this properly. Most aquarists will not be changing their community tank parameters for one or 2 pretty fish.

And I too agree that too much inbreeding will enventually produce inferior fish but is necessary to develope new strains.....but in that, the quality breeders are doing much more culling of deformed, etc., fry....and some of the guppy strains are a great example of that....eventually you must out cross to refresh the genetics and keep the strain going also.

Edit here: I think our confusions are in the word "acclimating"..after rereading several times. You either can nearly always acclimate your setup to match the fish....but not totally acclimate your fish to match your current setup setup.

btate617

And I too agree that too much inbreeding will enventually produce inferior fish but is necessary to develope new strains.....but in that, the quality breeders are doing much more culling of deformed, etc., fry....and some of the guppy strains are a great example of that....eventually you must out cross to refresh the genetics and keep the strain going also.


The only thing I would like to add is nobody should confuse inbreeding with what Ted is calling outcrossing.

Inbreeding is NOT necessary to develop new strains, inbreeding isn't necessary for anything other than uping your number of fry to sell. I believe what Ted means is introducing a fish from a different source (unrelated) to introduce new blood into the lines of the fish you are breeding (outcrossing).

Brian

Slug

Agreed Brian. Thats my definitions of each as well. Inbreeding is within the same "family group" or generations. Out crossing would be just to bolster the blood with some new genetics and stronger lines.

A good example would be Yellow Lab Cichlids. Overtime and to much breeding you will start to see bars form on the fish where before in previous generations you wouldn't see that. So you'd just go back to the original and breed it with one of the ones with the bars, what should be produced are less of the barred fish.

Sorry for the confusion if any Ted, its going on 3:30am over here hehe.

btate617

LOL ask Shawnie about when I pointed out the barring in L. Caeruleus I thought she was gonna slap me........

Great point though for everyone, next time you are in a fish store check out the yellow labs, more times than not they will have the black barring. It is still a Labidochromis Caeruleus, however it has been breed back and forth with mother/son, father/daughter so much it has produced the barring. You lose the original coloring, back to guppies, when breeding the wrong generation of fish to eachother.


Brian

TedsTank

And I agree to the above....wew!
I remember the post about shawnies fish!