Tank Raised or Wild fish?

[jadams7]

Which do you prefer? Tank raised, or caught in the wild? I have heard good arguments for both, just wanting to see what most people have better success with. Thanks!

[SeanF]

I would say that Tank Raised fish would always be better to have in an ideal world but the problem is the cost of many of these fish and the limited availablity. If you are having poor success with tank raised fish it would probably be due to problems at the location you bought them from. Unfortunately many stores don't have seperate systems to deal with Tank Raised fish so they are exposed to parasites and other pathogens that they have not been exposed to before which can cause problems for them.

[pledosophy]

I'll preface this with that I am very opinionated on the subject.

 

Just to be clear this is how I define the terms myself

 

WC, wild caught fish are caught by collectors in the ocean and then distributed among wholesalers then to our LFS

 

TR, are fish that spent some time in the ocean. Either they were collected as fry and then raised in a tank, or the brood stock was kept in tanks and the fry were raised in net pens in the ocean.

 

CB, captive bred fish are fish whose parents are in closed systems, the fry are born in closed systems and kept there until they are sold.

 

IME/IMO WC and CB are better then TR. CB being the best.

 

Many companies have found the use of ocean pens to raise fish to be a good alternative and way of cutting costs down. The ocean provides the food, there is no need for water changes, or the electricity needed to run tanks. This process is also called maricultured.

 

IME with maricultured fish, which primarily pertains to seahorses, is that the fry is packed in such tight quarters, they are more prone to carry different parasites. On a different forum I belong to we have been tracking many of the TR fish that are coming in and find there survival rate to be far lower then WC and CB fish.

 

IME with CB fish they are parsite free, tend to do better long term, and have no ill effects on the ocean. The TR fish, especially those that are being raised in net pens in Asia have very bad effects on the local environments as it exposes the entire region to pathogens that were not introduced before.

 

CB fish have no detrimental affects on the environment, and are not exposed to pathogens or parasites.

 

For me use I prefer to get CB when ever possible. I like to buy corals as frags from local people.

 

There are some fish that are not available as CB which I do buy from my LFS's since I want the fish and I'm not theat high and mighty.

 

I do try to get CB speciments whenever possible and IME thus far have far better experience with them.

 

I have purchased maricultured clams and kept them with succsess.

 

JMO