Is the hobby slowly dwindling?

[LukeOscar]

The lack of culling deformities &/or weak fish in this hobby goes back several decades. In fact I can’t recall a time that it hasn't taken place. Money has always been a huge incentive to breeders. Flowerhorns are a prime example. Not judging, I’ve owned several, but longevity was never factored in to the equation. Fish are easy enough to replace, to those that can afford it. At the same time, good genetics from solid lines, or WC stock are easy enough to purchase, to those that can afford it. The hobby may be dwindling in numbers, but poor quality genetically weak fish have nothing to do with it.

i have to agree with the member who mentioned how many of us are trying to mimic a small part of nature in our homes. people who are after that type of satisfaction aren't going to be ok with buying deformed and or overly hybridized fish. so culling definitely effects that aspect. the other consumer that's obvious to me is the decorative crowed. people who want something like Glow-fish. hence the drive in oddball or almost designer fish. hell when i first got on MFK most people bashed flowerhorns like they werent even worthy of living. where is the hobby now.

 

[RD.]

Plenty of good fish available in ON, but if you think they will be found at your local Big Al‘s you are not being realistic. They get most of their fish from large farms in Florida, where provenace back to the wild seldom exists. You get what you pay for. Designer fish, such as the vast majority of discus sold at LFS’s have also been around for decades, and just like FH’s they sell because there is a market for them. I’ve kept plenty of WC fish over the years, along with many F1 and F2 fish from local breeders that had provenance back to the wild. There was no shortage of quality fish then, or now, if one has the funds. Btw - I grew up in ON back in the 60’s & 70’s, and have been on MFK since 2007. A certain segment of this hobby have always bashed hybrid fish, but that doesn’t change the reality of there being a consumer demand for those types of fish. Some of those man made fish fetch several hundred dollars, some thousands. Like it or not, hybrids, and sometimes just plain sloppy breeding goes back as far as I can recall, and I’ve been in this hobby for a bit.

 

[Kelly_Aquatics]

People are being trained by social media to have a short attention span; by now we are used to instant gratification. I think that is the main reason for the decline in attention. People don’t want to grow out a fish for months. Personally I see it as a good thing, the dedicate keepers that know what they are doing will keep doing what they love while the people that treat fish as decorations or lesser life will lose interest l.

 

[Kelly_Aquatics]

Plenty of good fish available in ON, but if you think they will be found at your local Big Al‘s you are not being realistic. They get most of their fish from large farms in Florida, where provenace back to the wild seldom exists. You get what you pay for. Designer fish, such as the vast majority of discus sold at LFS’s have also been around for decades, and just like FH’s they sell because there is a market for them. I’ve kept plenty of WC fish over the years, along with many F1 and F2 fish from local breeders that had provenance back to the wild. There was no shortage of quality fish then, or now, if one has the funds. Btw - I grew up in ON
back in the 60’s & 70’s, and have been on MFK since 2007. A certain segment of this hobby have always bashed hybrid fish, but that doesn’t change the reality of there being a consumer demand for those types of fish. Some of those man made fish fetch several hundred dollars, some thousands. Like it or not, hybrids, and sometimes just plain sloppy breeding goes back as far as I can recall, and I’ve been in this hobby for a bit.

The mom and pop shops in ontario are top notch. Finatics in missasuaga always had a variety of F1 cichlids and rarely seen wild caught goodies.

 

[RD.]

The mom and pop shops in ontario are top notch. Finatics in missasuaga always had a variety of F1 cichlids and rarely seen wild caught goodies.

Yes, no question about that. But for every top notch LFS found in Canada, there are scores of shops that sell nothing but farm fish. Hybrids, culls, hormoned fish - I’ve seen it all, and then some. The largest farms in Florida, such as Segrest, sell hybrid fish. Some farms are notorious for selling juiced fish, like one often sees in the ”assorted African cichlid” tanks. They sell them, because millions of consumers buy them up, vs paying a higher amount for fish from the wild caught, or F1 tanks - if the store even has such a thing. Most don’t. Not saying that there aren’t quality genetics to be found in ON, actually the complete opposite. Get on a local forum, lots of people still importing WC fish, and breeding them.

 

[dogofwar]

This is the biggest issue: With few exceptions, the local fish stores that used to exist and do the "hand holding" for new hobbyists have largely gone away. Or become so hand-to-mouth or cynical that they don't really provide customer service. And Big Box and "Mart" stores aren't a replacement. Our hobby depends on new entrants being successful and progressing from bread and butter fish to specialization - whatever it is. The number of used and free tanks available is a testament to the significant failure rates.

As long as there has been a hobby, there have been "fancy fish." Different strokes for different folks. For every person who is enthralled with glowfish or a flowerhorn or an orange discus, there's someone who gets excited about a wild brown cichlid.

I think there’s a steep learning curve and the traditional places people would think to go for advice generally provide bullshit.

You want to learn about skateboarding, you can go to a skate shop and get some good beginner advice along with your first deck. Same with most other hobbies.

Fishkeeping, though, it seems like the economic calculations are different. The big box stores expect consumers to only stick in the hobby for around 12 months and try to squeeze as much money out in that time as they can. So a parent and kids walk in to a pet store with a fish section, and walk out with some kind of insane set up sold to them by a random employee - a 6 gallon Oscar aquarium with clown puke gravel, or something.

Cue 4 months of struggle - constant tank crashes, bacterial blooms, and dying fish. Returning to the fish store just to be sold “cure alls” and water buffers that do more harm then good. Until the fish finally dies and the parent says “What a disaster” and doesn’t try again.

And it isn’t like you can Google a question and find our a good answer, either. If forums like this one weren’t around, all there’s be would be was listicle articles giving out absolutely awful advice.

It’s the only hobby I’ve ever tried where it seemed like some of the largest hobby supplier companies had staff who seemed like they were actively giving harmful advice (no need for a filter in a RTM cichlid tank, ex.)

 

[Fishman Dave]

Is the hobby dwindling?

That really all depends on what you look at and where you look.

Pricing:
Back in 1985 I couldn’t get a redtail catfish for anything less than £1500, now they are common as muck for as little as £10.
Not sure if this is progress or not to be honest.
Do I want everyone to have access to a redtail cat for £10.
Probably not - so as much as I hate it, the extortionate pricing of some stuff is actually a good thing.

Buying stuff:
If I wanted a fish back then I had to catch a bus into town and go visit the one of two tropical fish shops we had. I couldn’t order them online, online didn’t exist. I had to go to the end of the street if I wanted to ring someone, to the public phone box!
One of those shops still exists today and is still run by the same guy, albeit he is in his eighties now.
I even think he has the same shop layout. It all still looks like I remember it.
I would take that guys advice all day long, cos he has lived the life, done the deed, and felt the pain……….. I can’t bare Facebook just because of the amount of crap people speil on there! But I just can’t help myself but try to “educate those lost causes”

Variety:
Back then we could get the basics but half of the stuff we see today had not even been found let alone exported. So most of it I had only ever seen in books or the practical fishkeeping magazine. But, when you did come across something , so many folks had no idea what it was that that was when you could pick up a real bargain! A proper gem!
What I would give to have the knowledge I have now and all those gems back again!
But I can’t, so I have to consider everything I can get nowadays as a gem themselves, and treat them as such !

Humans being our own worst enemy are managing to dam rivers, cut down forests and polute the waters where many of these relatively “newly” found fish have survived for hundreds of years, so getting hold of wild caught may eventually become a thing of the past. Yes it’s absolutely terrible but without the hobbyist so many species wouldn’t exist, just thinking of redtail black sharks for one.
So we really need to think, do we want an example of something to own and look at - if the answer is yes - then buy tank bred.
Do we want to breed and reintroduce back into the wild, Yes - then by all means become part of a programme and buy wild caught- but make it for some reason more than “because I can” or “because it’s worth more” and especially not “because it was a great cheap deal”.

If we are all buying wild caught because we can and it’s dirt cheap then Yes the hobby will dwindle out, and I for one will be extremely sad to say after my forty odd years in it ………… so it ought to!

I don’t want monstrosities, I am not a fan of hybrids or man made, they have their place, but I don’t typically keep them. The internet has been good for so many things and yet imo absolutely awful for so many more, and one of the worst is the ability to “show off “ what you have and what you have done, and outcompete the Jones’s next door. But this is the case for so much more than fish!

There are purists out there that are buying and breeding the plain rare livebearers that very few folks want, but are becoming extinct in the wild, but the hobby won’t survive to cater for those people, but it might survive because of them. The modern hobby majority will get fed up, move on , find another fascination. The you’s and me’s will keep it going whilst ever we can, but those livebearer breeder types won’t give up and they won’t let it die out completely.
The problem of course is that they themselves will dwindle out!
So I guess it is down to you and me!

 

[Joshuakahan]

A few years back, I'd be able to find most fish I was looking for simply by trawling through most larger online retail stores, or requesting orders through my LFS and local wholesalers. Nowadays it seems as though it's virtually impossible to find even half the fish I'm looking for, unless I play the waiting game and somehow end up getting lucky. Fish stores seem to be slowly deteriorating in quality (though they never were really comparable to private importers and breeders IME), and I've watched several close down in the last decade or so. Importers don't seem to be getting as wide a variety of fish anymore, with several either going out of the business altogether or downsizing significantly. New species aren't being imported as much as they were in the late 1900s -early 2000s, and the ones that are don't seem like much other than a slightly recoloured version of a preexisting species, in my ignorant eyes. It seems as though each passing year brings along more export restrictions, collection bans, keeping bans, etc. It's been getting harder and harder to source large groups of uncommon fish for lower prices; and oftentimes I find myself passing over fish that have been on my wishlist- and bucket list, too- simply because the prices are so oddly foreign to me that it's rather difficult to comprehend, and I subconsciously ignore the modern rarity of said fish, assuming that I can better prices elsewhere. I don't know how many times I've ended up mentally bashing myself for passing up deals that seemed terrible at the time but are now practically impossible to even comprehend.

On the contrary, tank-bred fish seem to be more prevalent nowadays, with dropping prices and wider selections. Not sure what to think of it, to be honest; I'm personally much more fond of WC fish, especially for breeding projects, and will intentionally go out of my way to pay more for them, even though there might be hundreds of tank-bred specimens on the market. But nowadays, it's coming to a point where it's virtually impossible to buy wild-caught over tank-bred, simply because the difference in cost is far beyond any reasonable justification on part of the WC fish- for instance, people have been selling mature WC L183s for literal hundreds- just recently I've seen three proven trios go for $600 each!- while small captive-bred specimens can be found for as low as $20 per fish (and ~$100 per CB adult, it seems).

Now I'm left wondering what the future of the hobby will look like; it certainly doesn't seem like many of the younger generations seem to be interested in the nuances of fishkeeping, and with fish selections seemingly on the decline, what will the next few decades have in store for those dedicated fishkeepers still around?
Or maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing and nothing of much significance is really happening.

It doesn't seem like just fish, either; a lot of other things (like power tools and lightbulbs, and cast iron skillets for that matter) seem to be lowering in diversity until it's just those few "big name" brands that practically hold a monopoly over a store (and of course, it's problems with bankruptcy, increasing manufacturing costs, problems with supply reliability, increase in transportation costs, etc. Applies to fish as well, I reckon) But since I put more focus into fish instead of frying pans, I figured it'd be worth asking about the future of the hobby.

Any thoughts?

I think LFS are dying but they’re being replaced by online stores. I can find anything I want online and have it shipped to my door without having to spend a couple hours of my day shopping LFS. That’s the future in my opinion

 

[Joshuakahan]

Is the hobby dwindling?

That really all depends on what you look at and where you look.

Pricing:
Back in 1985 I couldn’t get a redtail catfish for anything less than £1500, now they are common as muck for as little as £10.
Not sure if this is progress or not to be honest.
Do I want everyone to have access to a redtail cat for £10.
Probably not - so as much as I hate it, the extortionate pricing of some stuff is actually a good thing.

Buying stuff:
If I wanted a fish back then I had to catch a bus into town and go visit the one of two tropical fish shops we had. I couldn’t order them online, online didn’t exist. I had to go to the end of the street if I wanted to ring someone, to the public phone box!
One of those shops still exists today and is still run by the same guy, albeit he is in his eighties now.
I even think he has the same shop layout. It all still looks like I remember it.
I would take that guys advice all day long, cos he has lived the life, done the deed, and felt the pain……….. I can’t bare Facebook just because of the amount of crap people speil on there! But I just can’t help myself but try to “educate those lost causes”

Variety:
Back then we could get the basics but half of the stuff we see today had not even been found let alone exported. So most of it I had only ever seen in books or the practical fishkeeping magazine. But, when you did come across something , so many folks had no idea what it was that that was when you could pick up a real bargain! A proper gem!
What I would give to have the knowledge I have now and all those gems back again!
But I can’t, so I have to consider everything I can get nowadays as a gem themselves, and treat them as such !

Humans being our own worst enemy are managing to dam rivers, cut down forests and polute the waters where many of these relatively “newly” found fish have survived for hundreds of years, so getting hold of wild caught may eventually become a thing of the past. Yes it’s absolutely terrible but without the hobbyist so many species wouldn’t exist, just thinking of redtail black sharks for one.
So we really need to think, do we want an example of something to own and look at - if the answer is yes - then buy tank bred.
Do we want to breed and reintroduce back into the wild, Yes - then by all means become part of a programme and buy wild caught- but make it for some reason more than “because I can” or “because it’s worth more” and especially not “because it was a great cheap deal”.

If we are all buying wild caught because we can and it’s dirt cheap then Yes the hobby will dwindle out, and I for one will be extremely sad to say after my forty odd years in it ………… so it ought to!

I don’t want monstrosities, I am not a fan of hybrids or man made, they have their place, but I don’t typically keep them. The internet has been good for so many things and yet imo absolutely awful for so many more, and one of the worst is the ability to “show off “ what you have and what you have done, and outcompete the Jones’s next door. But this is the case for so much more than fish!

There are purists out there that are buying and breeding the plain rare livebearers that very few folks want, but are becoming extinct in the wild, but the hobby won’t survive to cater for those people, but it might survive because of them. The modern hobby majority will get fed up, move on , find another fascination. The you’s and me’s will keep it going whilst ever we can, but those livebearer breeder types won’t give up and they won’t let it die out completely.
The problem of course is that they themselves will dwindle out!
So I guess it is down to you and me!

The first RTCs I saw were in the late 80s, the first one I saw was around 10” and $400. I think the less common fish have gone up, but back then, convicts and JDs were around $4 and that hasn’t changed much

 

[jjohnwm]

I think LFS are dying but they’re being replaced by online stores. I can find anything I want online and have it shipped to my door without having to spend a couple hours of my day shopping LFS. That’s the future in my opinion

I'm old enough to still prefer buying something that I can see, touch and feel...rather than ordering it sight unseen online and being forced to trust that I will get what I want. I've bought fish one time only online, and might do it again...but it would be an exceptional circumstance.

I mean...I won't even order a pair of shoes online. I want to try them on for fit before I buy. Fish? If I want to buy a half dozen of a given species...I want to be able to observe the tank they are in for myself, the clarity of the water, the general overall condition of the fish in it. I don't just want the slowest, dumbest easiest-to-catch 6 fish in the tank. In a store, I don't necessarily point at one fish out of 200 in the tank and say "Gimme that one!"...but I want to see each one in the net and approve it before it comes out of the water. And I have no problem vetoing a given specimen and asking for another.

My wife and I lived together for years before we married. That worked for me; I wasn't the least bit interested in a mail-order bride. I'm slightly less careful about buying fish...but only slightly...