Is Your F0 Really F0

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John Rambo;1363749; said:
some differences I noticed were the larger eyes despite the same size body. Wild also had a longer thin body with a larger mouth. Again this could be just a variation in the captive bred gene pool or it could be a show of difference in wild fish.






Wild caught fish are in fact laterally compressed for obvious reasons. No true way to tell even from a collector, unless you ARE the collector. Just stay honest and only re sell wilds you were sold as wilds and so on...Good luck with these and they look great :)
 
thanks for all the input every one! just wondering if other keepers of the wild fish wonder the same thing. maybe one day we all take a trip to ca and sa and catch us some wild fish!
 
If I had 2 WC jags for example, and bred them, would you still pay the same price for the young. They are CB, but you know they aren't farmed, so still have the same strong gene pool as you would from WC fish. At what F# do you start paying less?
 
when the seller cannot tell me how many generations the fish is away from their wild caught parents, F?, it becomes petco prices or cheaper. WC sellers often ask for as high as double for 1" fish
 
I think its funny we want wild cichlids and captive bred rays............it's a crazy hobby.
 
In my opinion... We should only be buying F0 fish if we intend on breeding them and distributing the fry. If not (imo) we should be satisified buying captive bred fish... This is to minimize the impact our hobby has on nature...

But once you decide to buy an F0 fish...

There are Cichlid distributors out there who do go out and import their own fish. Most of these guys are hobby fanatics and will give you the collection point and encourage you to breed true to the collection point. These guys I would tend to trust, but may still want to 'verify'.

I'm fortunate enough to have Ken Davis as a member of my local fish club so I've met him a couple times and he posts on our local forum. Once when I was interested in some Trimacs claimed to be F0 by Danny Thacker, I asked Ken if he knew the guy. Ken basically told me he would trust Danny's claim, therefore I trusted Danny's claim. I'm very happy with my Trimacs (Thanks Danny & Ken!)

There is no way to "know" by looking at the fish... so at some point we have to trust the seller, but I highly suggest you do not trust every claim made by every seller, as there are poeple out there who will lie to make a buck...
 
I sold a bunch of Festae fry to one of my lfs and made sure they new they were F1's. I went in a few days later and the tank was labeled Wild Caught Festae. :screwy: They gave me $2.50 in store credit and had them for sale at $19.99/ea. Needless to say, their repution went down the toilet with me.
 
Aha! I catch my own, and if everything goes well I'm picking my mom up from the airport tonight and she should have some more RTM's and finally some of the Salvadorean Convicts. I trust her...

And if I'm buying in the states.. I usually trust the source, especially if they are on a public forum with reputations at stake. As far as most LFS's go... it's a touchy situation.
 
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