Difference between WC and CB

[nid]

Beautiful Post Nid Very informative

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Thanks mrwinkle, but there is so much more to it that I can't put in writing. Endi's for example are a little different since most have froggy eyes already. But I'm thankful I have the best class room to learn from at my LFS. I will ask him next time is I could take a pic of his pet tank and post it here. I doubt it through haha. The highlight is a 75cm Angsorgii. Wish all of us could just sit down and talk abt bichirs at the LFS. haha.

Nid, that was very informative. One thing that I am curious about, is why these changes happen? Is it because of inbreeding and cross breeding?
Thanks

At this point you are now asking me to be a scientist which I, of cos am not. But I will share some hearsays and theories. By no means are any of this facts. Believe at your own risk.

Yes, inbreeding is the number one suspect. Yrs and yrs of inbreeding is sure to produce its own set of problems. But I believe that is not the only reason. I have heard that in indonesia, hormone pumped endi's as small as 12" are already breeding, considering that they can reach over 25", you can imagine what kind of offspring is produced. Of cos there is also cross breeding, why they do it? Apparently they had problems breeding angsorgiis, but by cross breeding them with endis, they had success. Then in Japan where top quality is normally more impt then fast cash. There is the tale of the Turkana PBB. (credit to bro TGM for sharing this sometime back) While the Turkana PBB breeding program had 1 successful batch, a lot of them were failures. These were F0, so inbreeding was not a factor. So why? One can only guess, mine would be simple, we are not able to produce the conditions of the wild, might be the water, or maybe the stress. Who knows. In the end, the Japanese gave up and indo picked up the defects goods and started breeding them. I remember the indos cross a Turkana and Chad PBB to produce the CB PBB you see in my pics. My memory is a bit hazy on this, so if bro TGM would like to share the story again, you should listen more to that then me. I believe I was the first in Singapore to actually buy and post it in a forum last yr.

Then there is also the market for defective fish. Short bodies, albinos and platinum etc etc. So fishes but being specially bred to have defects. So the market demand for the different is another cause.

There are a lot of reason, but only a scientist who have done extensive research on this would be able to give you a proper ans. So you ask abt why some ppl act like experts? Because ppl like to ask questions like what yours in a public forum. Everyone has a right to an opinion, but dun expect anyone to give you facts. Take everything with a pinch of salt.

 

[rodger]

Thanks again, Nid. Believe me, there is lots of salt in my diet.

 

[aclockworkorange]

I have more thoughts on this topic than I'm willing to type out on my phone, so I will just make a few points.
First, I think "wild caught vs captive bred" is pretty vague. Captive bred could be a fish with two wild caught parents (so it is F1) or a fish who has been captive bred with hormones for generation after generation. I very rarely see the filial generation of captive bred bichirs labeled.
You know what else I rarely see labeled on bichirs? Collection points. Many species of fish can look very different depending on where they were caught. I could show you examples of cichlids you probably would think are completely different fish, but are the same species with different collection points.
Finally, we do see differences in fish that are captive bred in the hobby. Take Amphilophus labiatus for example... Populations of wild caught specimens develop large fleshy "lips" from their feeding habits:

This trait doesn't seem to be passed on to captive bred offspring. Which opens up the question of what behaviors are these bichirs exhibiting in the wild that they aren't exhibiting in aquaria that may change their physical appearance?

That's it from me, I think this is a very interesting topic and I liked reading what differences some members have observed in their own fish! Keep them coming.


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[mrwinkle]

Okay I will get the beer, now all we need is a place to sit down and time to talk about this for hours... I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread.

 

[aclockworkorange]

So any theories as to why captive bred bichirs would tend to have the "froggy eyes?"


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[Kohaku]

After keeping bichirs for so long, I have some trouble telling some of the polypterus apart some times. Unlike the others which is relative easier to tell, these polypterus, ie. palmas variants, del, senegal variants, weeksii etc, have very little characteristic to tell them apart.

Maybe some knowledgable guys should start a thread tell teaching us to tell a WC from a CB of the various species. Most of the time I relied on the importers to tell me if the polypterus is WC or CB.

 

[FishFreak95]

So you guys encourage constantly taking them out of the wild rather than captive breeding? Im kind of surprised.

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[nid]

So you guys encourage constantly taking them out of the wild rather than captive breeding? Im kind of surprised.

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We are having a discussion abt the difference between wc and cb bichirs. Also abt the theories why cb fish have so many defects. You should get down ur high horse and read the tread before u try to troll. At no point did anyone encourage the buying of wc fish.

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[sandofarms]

I'm surprised too that responsible fish keepers would encourage wild catching fish for a human hobby, causing another Asian arowana, or boesemani rainbow.
i would intentionally buy captive bred.

there's no high horse here, the pet trade destroys the wild.
save the wild fishies!

 

[Egon]

So you guys encourage constantly taking them out of the wild rather than captive breeding? Im kind of surprised.

I think you misunderstand the point of this thread. We are talking about the difference between Wild caught (WC) and Captive bred (CB). This thread is not about taking wild fish out of their environment. English is a very difficult language, it's easy to misunderstand the little nuances of this language......

I'm surprised too that responsible fish keepers would encourage wild catching fish for a human hobby, causing another Asian arowana, or boesemani rainbow.
i would intentionally buy captive bred.

there's no high horse here, the pet trade destroys the wild.
save the wild fishies!

Okay again this thread is about the differences between Wild Caught (WC) and Captive Bred (CB) We are not talking about Horses, Asian Arowana, or Boesmani rainbow fish......

Try to stay on topic folks.