When I bought my pbass mono's i was told they are wilds , and a couple people that have seen them in my tank say they are wilds, how can you tell? what are the differences?
what's the difference between wild and farm breed ????
- Thread starter Clash
- Start date
there are ways to tell do a search.. there are about 10 threads telling you the diff. it is hard for the un-trained eye to indentify. color, fins, body shape, eyes, head shapes, markings on and on
what if you keep a wild fish for, say, 2 years? Will it still retain the 'wild' colours? I think nature and nurture come hand in hand in this case. No number of wild fish will show its best in a less then ideal condition. A farmed fish will LOOK great if kept under optimal conditions. So what is optimal conditions? Our orinos look better than those from the wild (eg.Rio Negro), so by duplicating the natural parameters isn't necessarily the key. IMO, it is a good idea to provide our hands on experiences on colour changes when we tweak the pH, lighting, food, substrate, tank size. And also stating this while posting images. This information will help pbass owners or future owners to start from where we left off. More pretty pbasss = more potential owners. Good for our hobby 
i some what agree with you rio negro... i feel that farm fish will never have the same colors as wild fish. do you think those farms in china are feeding them high quality foods or the cheapest dog food they can find? do you think their water quality is at its prime and for how long? how about the breeding of the same exact male and female for their whole stock and then the cross mixing of their offspring with their parents. all these factors eventually take tolls on a fishes genetics down the line and over the years. as for wild cichla foods top notch, water quality is perfect and parents only find and spawn with the strongest and finest looking cichla.. i would like to consider myself some what of a fanatic. i try to find out exactly where my cichla are from that is my first step. then i do a bit of research on the location to find out about water current in the area, and ph which i feel is important. i never owned a wild set of fish that i didnt keep in extremely low ph. those sp. venz. above were kept in like 5.6ph. besides ph, i try to keep my water quality in the best condition i possibly can. no ammonia, no nitrates, no nitrites ect. as everyone knows water changes are very important. with each and every waters change i try to match the temp as close to the tank as possible... consistency is key and automatic water changes are great but i dont have one as of yet, maybe when i get my big tank. automatic water changes keep you ph more stable. i add black water and i add kordons vita which has a large of amount of natural vitamins and of course you cant forget stress coat. next is diet and it is a very important part of fish keeping. i try to feed them alot of different varieties from live foods to frozen foods and if cichla will take pellets i recommend hikari gold. besides minnows and black worms most of my other live foods are naturally collected from non polluted areas. another important factor is not over feeding. everyone wants a fat cichla but honestly they are not like that in the wild. they do not gorge themselves beside maybe twice a year, spring( prespawn and in the fall) i feel over feeding causes them to grow fast but they do not develop their colors.. i have to run, pardon my spelling and grammar for i typed this fast and was not well thought out but im sure there is something i forgot to mention.. so any questions?
whaddup BrAddAh....... still droppin knowledge huh...