Re: [Killietalk] Wild vs. tank raised

[Barry Cooper <bjc3 at centurytel_net>]

Matt and everyone,

a couple of points. For Nothos it is certainly not any more difficult to 
breed wild fish than tank bred fish, at least once they have survived 
the trip and started to feed. Overall, I would guess that I probably get 
more production from wild fish than tank bred, and a few species decline 
over a number of generations in the aquarium.

With regard to those that look just the same after many years in the 
hobby, I think you are remembering comments about N. foerschi. We 
collected it on the first trip I went on at Soga, TZ, the type locality, 
and you wouldn't be able to differentiate those from the aquarium strain 
that had been around for many years. I think the same is more or less 
true of a number of species, such as N. guentheri. Others like N. 
korthausae have changed partly, I suspect, due to deliberate selection. 
The aquarium strains of N. rachovii I have seen and kept haven't exactly 
deteriorated compared to the wild fish, but do lack some of the 
iridescence and luster of the wild fish.

Last, there are no N. rachovii on Mafia Island. N. sp. aff. melanospilus 
and N. korthausae occur there.

Barry

Barry J. Cooper
Sweet Home, OR 97386



matt kaufman wrote:
> "If we are talking about tank raised fish verses wild fish there are probably conditioning factors to consider.  I understand it is very difficult just to keep wild caught fish alive in an aquarium much less breed them."Probably too sweeping a generalization. Having collected wild fish (goodeids), I found them trivially easy to breed in captivity, spawning within days. 
> I've never kept wild killies, but anecdotally I've heard some species are very aggressive once in captivity, though they breed readily. I'd certainly enjoy the chance someday at some neat wild killies.... hmm... maybe that's why I'm in the AKA :-) Have definitely heard that fertility drops off across the generations and of course, coloring might change due to who knows what. Barry's talk a few years back on N. rachovii and how it looks the same now from the wild as it has 30 years in the hobby (I think this was the Mafia Island strain) of course means, you can't generalize...
>  
> Other opinions?
>  
> Matt in the PNW
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