Is buying native fish cheating?

[Cu455]

I know it is not cheating and what it comes down to is personal preference. I caught nearly all my fish in my tank. It annoys me a little to say I caught all the fish except.... Since I setup my tank I contemplated buying a few fish but couldn't pull the trigger. There is something about catching the fish that gives me that little extra pleasure. I kind of feel like I am cheating with my tank if I buy fish instead of catching them. Any like minded people here, when it comes to North American tanks.

If I lived in Florida I would be a South American tank together with some wild caught invasives.

 

[Anthony Nolet]

I've wanted to buy fish a couple times. Mainly ones not from my area and one from an hour north that I've never been able to go fish for. But I've never done it. My biggest problem is that the place I was looking at had fish that were like an inch and I don't have a growout tank really. But I definitely agree with the part about being able to say I caught them all myself. Even when my friend caught a big bullhead we kept I felt weird saying I didn't catch it. Since it died though I have caught everything in my tank. But if someone wanted to ship me a free male Missouri longear around 6" I wouldn't tell them no.

 

[Hendre]

if i want some tigerfish i can go catch some but it is a 12 hour drive. i guess its not really cheating unless the fish are captive bred

 

[krichardson]

The only fish that I want to catch and keep is a Tripletail.....one of these days.

 

[Moontanman]

You would only be cheating yourself out of the experience of collecting you own fish, it's quite fun and you never know what you might catch!

 

[divemaster99]

I've almost bought natives before but honestly, unless it's a species not local to me, I have more fun getting out into the field and catching the fish myself! It's also a way to explore the aquatic life of bodies of water outside of angling and scuba/snorkel. All of which I do but you'll find a whole lot of stuff in a seine that you'd never see out in the open with your face in the water or with a hook and some bait.

 

[warmouth]

No, I dont think so, several of the native LFS dealers (Jonahs aquarium, Zimmermans fish, and BTdarters), have fish that have been bred to have brighter colors and are already adapted to aquarium life.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

I have bought fish I can't readily catch here, like greenside darters, and small walleye. My two crappie were purchased too but that's only because they had a good deal on natives at the time and I didn't want 6 walleye haha.

 

[Joecatfish88]

I like to catch my fish. It can be harder and more time consuming to catch the tiny aquarium specimens, than the big lunker's sometimes.

 

[Frank Castle]

absolutely not a big deal to me. If u really find it important to say "i caught all these", but to be honest I would rather purchase fish I know to be healthy from a reliable vendor instead of potentially introducing pathogens to my tanks. I take much more pride and enjoyment in releasing the fish I catch for the most part.