What is your dream captive-bred fish?

[saltcats]

Personally I would really love to see some more of the shrimp gobies! I'd much rather buy captive bred than wild caught but it seems all the captive bred shrimp gobies are the larger species (like the yellow watchman) - would love to see smaller ones like the orange spotted, yasha, or Wheeler's.

 

[Biota_Marine]

Personally I would really love to see some more of the shrimp gobies! I'd much rather buy captive bred than wild caught but it seems all the captive bred shrimp gobies are the larger species (like the yellow watchman) - would love to see smaller ones like the orange spotted, yasha, or Wheeler's.

We are working on some more gobies, we seem to have found a great niche with the Trimma and Eviota gobies where there is such a high diversity and demand for these little guys. I think it's because of the short life span making a wild-caught alternative generally not worth it.

We did carry some of RWU's captive-bred yasha gobies when they were available but unfortunately that project is no longer going, hopefully we can resurrect it with yashas, draculas, and a few other key shrimp gobies.

 

[jnvd3b]

Conspicuous Angelfish

 

[saltyhog]

Genicanthus personatus (you said dream). Seriously I would love for these to be captive bred enough to be available and affordable for the average reef keeper. Simply a beautiful reef safe angel.

 

[Biota_Marine]

Conspicuous Angelfish

Unfortunately, Poma Labs already beat us to these guys although I don't think the pricing is going to come down anytime soon.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I echo the desire for captive bred eels.

One fish I'd love to see again is Trimma cana. Nothing against the other Trimmas, but this one is the nano fish I want.

Oh! Or literally any of the smaller nano sized fish. Aiolopis megastigma, Apogon parvulus, Discordipinna griessingeri, etc.

 

[sanzz18]

Mandarin Dragonet!

 

[Jib]

I would like to see more small gobies being aquacultered. Like the orange spot & yasha. Would love to see tank raised firefish as well.

 

[jnvd3b]

Unfortunately, Poma Labs already beat us to these guys although I don't think the pricing is going to come down anytime soon.

that’s true, but they don’t have exclusive ‘rights’ to breed them do they?

any rare fish being captive bred is a catch-22 i suppose as it will drive the price down, but any wild fish you help prevent being caught would be that more helpful in case it gets into an endangered status being as they are rare in the first place.

 

[UkiahTheTurtle]

captive bred regal tangs

 

[Biota_Marine]

I echo the desire for captive bred eels.

One fish I'd love to see again is Trimma cana. Nothing against the other Trimmas, but this one is the nano fish I want.

Oh! Or literally any of the smaller nano sized fish. Aiolopis megastigma, Apogon parvulus, Discordipinna griessingeri, etc.

We got you on the Trimma cana it'll just be a little bit along with a few other Trimmas. I personally tried the both Aiolopsis megastigma and Discrodipinna griessingeri many years ago with no luck. Both are incredibly sensitive and there's such a short spawning window in their life cycles which make it very difficult. Although we did have success with Ostorhinchus sealei which is very similar I can imagine parvulus would prove difficult.

 

[Biota_Marine]

Mandarin Dragonet!

We captive breed mandarins and they're available right now on our ordering site below:

Mandarin Fish

Synchiropus splendidus-Biota’s captive-bred mandarins are incredibly beautiful in coloration and readily feed on prepared diets. Wild caught mandarins are poor aquarium inhabitants and an overwhelming number die in the aquarium trade each year even in ideal conditions. Since mandarins are a...

shop.thebiotagroup.com

 

[Biota_Marine]

captive bred regal tangs

Working on it

 

[UkiahTheTurtle]

Working on it

cool i also wish i could have regal tangs but I only have a 20 gallon tank

 

[FlexingFishSticks]

Blue spot jawfish!

 

[Everything Aquatics]

Most wrasses would be really cool

 

[Doctorgori]

Anything high demand, rare and or endangered...
but personally I love Rock Beauty’s and Moorish Idols

are you ok with a lil deviation? if not apologies
@Biota_Marine are your spawning, rearing and feeding procedures protected/proprietary? or do you folks have publishing’s somewhere?
I’ve. also noticed some patterns such as scoring more “hits” within the same family and/or genera (which figures), so can you folks provide rough outlines and sequential success? did you find species specific issues with the same geneva’s?

 

[Larry L]

Hey Jake! Another vote for copperband butterfly, because I'd like to see some captive bred focus on relatively common/affordable fish that people buy all the time but then struggle to keep alive. Likewise for fish like e.g. multibar angels, that generally do ok if you can get them established, but are known for not tolerating capture/shipping/quarantine very well. The trick is finding fish in the pricing sweet spot where it's worth it financially for someone to captive breed them, but not so pricey that the add-on cost for captive bred vs wild caught puts them out of range of the typical hobbyist.

 

[Biota_Marine]

Anything high demand, rare and or endangered...
but personally I love Rock Beauty’s and Moorish Idols

are you ok with a lil deviation? if not apologies
@Biota_Marine are your spawning, rearing and feeding procedures protected/proprietary? or do you folks have publishing’s somewhere?
I’ve. also noticed some patterns such as scoring more “hits” within the same family and/or genera (which figures), so can you folks provide rough outlines and sequential success? did you find species specific issues with the same geneva’s?

To pull the curtain back a bit:

So our breeding procedures are protected and proprietary, as you've likely noticed on a few specific species certain companies have followed suit with species we've had success with, while we try to steer clear on stepping on any toes (I mentioned the conspics and Poma Labs above, Matt worked really hard for years to breed that species and there isn't really any reason for us to start that up). That being said we work very closely with the Oceanic Institute of Hawaii on the yellow tangs and I believe there are a few publications regarding that species.

We try our best to breed fish that are in need in the marketplace and branch off of that. If you take a look at the main species we're known for like the mandarins, court jester, trimma, and blotched anthias all these species have a horrible survival rate from wild sources for various reasons (diet, life span, swim bladder/depth; diver's often die to get blotched anthias at certain parts of the year) so there was a major need to needlessly prevent these species being imported only to die along the chain of custody. We also branch into species that we think will provide breakthroughs to further our research (Genicanthus, Zebrasoma, Centropyge, ect.). We have broodstock for Centropyge abei that we revealed at MACNA a few years ago and in the meantime we've been working on more common Centropyge with commercializing coral beauty angelfish.

So there are similarities within genera but every single species has their own quirks and differences to get them to a point where they are viable at a commercial level. Some may never be viable because of their larval duration or grow-out times. An example of this is the candy basslet which has roughly a 4-5 month larval duration prior to settlement which is absolutely insane.

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

There are a lot, but the two most realistic ones that come to mind are hawkfish and firefish.

Since it said dream fish, my dream would be for fairy gobies, interruptus angels, and flasher wrasses to be captive bred.