Wild caught fish?

Question

what freshwater aquarium fish are mainly wild caught and which are captive breed?

Answer 1

Most all live bearers, tetras, gourami and cichlids are now captive bred. Catfish are fairly evenly split with more and more species being captive bred. Loaches, some catfish and most other fish are still wild caught.

MM

Answer 2

That's a tricky question. When aquariums first became a widespread hobby the technology just wasn't there to breed fish at home. People didn't know about how they lived in the wild or how to mimic the conditions in an aquarium so most fish were wild caught. Technology for fish and research have really come a long way though. Almost every fish you see at the store right now has been raised in captivity, even saltwater fish are being raised in captivity now. For example if you go to petsmart, pretty much anything you see there has been raised in captivity because they dont believe in fish harvesting. That right there is about 200 species of fish. It's safe to say that pretty much all cichlids, goldfish, tetras, barbs, bettas, and danios are captive bred today. That doesn't mean every place that sells these fish sells captive bred, sometimes it is cheaper for them to get wild caught fish which is unfortunate because they don't do as well in an aquarium. Sorry if this is a long answer, it's a complicated question since thousands of species of fish are sold for aquarium keeping. In general though, if it isn't a specialty fish like a peacock bass or a hundred dollar saltwater fish you can bet that it has probably been captive bred.

Answer 3

I have a reputable guy I do business with that regularly imports ciclids ans angels. Most of your generic pet departments will sell captive bred fish. If you are looking for wild caught fish for the aquarium, I would recommend finding a local pet/fish store that specializes in aquariums and has been in business for a while. Good luck.