Article Keeping Wild Fish

This is an overview of some of the challenges and obstacles of keeping wild caught fish.

Behavior
Wild fish have unusual behavior that is almost always different than the tank bred brethren. I have noticed the following:

They are much less likely right away to visit their owner and are afraid of people - When first added to a tank they tend to stay to the back or hidden whenever anything unusual to them is near the tank. Unusual can be other pets or people. The best thing you can do is to not visit the tank as much during the first few weeks of adding them to your tank. Start out with minimal visitation and slowly acclimate them to who you are. I first only fed a few times and kept as minimal as possible but tried to stay away as much as I could. I also found that they dont like camera flashes and will dart away almost instantly afterwords. My mistake

They tend to be MUCH more aggressive than others - If you are adding wilds to an existing livestock, remember that your tank bred ones have a MUCH higher chance of being bullied. In the wild it is a fight of flight world whereas in a tank it is MUCH more controlled as they have no predators (hopefully) to worry about. The point here is that MAKE SURE that you feel that your existing fish are up to a bit of abuse. Regardless THERE WILL be a new pecking order in your tank!

Other Differences that depend on species - In my case I introduced 6 new Heckel Discus to a school of tank breds. My tank bred Discus had NO shoaling ability. The wilds however kept to a tight shoal much like that of Tetras. By adding them to the others, once the pecking order was laid out it turned out that about 5 of my other ones joined the wilds shoal! It made for a much healthier looking environment. Also the wilds like to explore where the tank breds kept to one spot. It spread my fish around the whole tank. What a wonderful sight to see 10 Discus swimming in unison and turning off of the leader like a TRUE shoal of fish!

Feeding

This is where the BIGGEST problems per say happened. I anticipated it and stocked up my food supply accordingly.

In the wild these animals have to hunt live prey. When in a tank we are feeding them pellets that dont exist in the wild. THIS MUST be kept in mind! Make sure you keep a stock of Live Foods as well as your man-made foods! Some frozen ones also make for a great in-the-middle food. You also MUST watch to make sure that they are all feeding properly because NOTHING is worse than loosing a fish because it is not eating!

I started out feeding the Discus Live Blackworms. I knew they should take it because the movement of the food will trigger a natural instinct. Depending on what you have the live food of choice may change as well.

Shortly after feeding them some live food in the first few days I fed a SMALL bit of the man-made dry food to them. Watched each one CAREFULLY and discovered not very many wanted it, although a few tried it but did not seem to care for it...

After a few days following this I fed some Frozen Bloodworms to them. Surprisingly most took to this food well, however I did have 2 stubborn ones in the group! Again following up with a small bit of the dry food.

After another day or 2 I switched the feedings around starting with the dry food and to my surprise the few that were eating it but not seeming to like it were happily taking the dry food now! The others that did not want to try it were now tasting it with the same skepticism that the others did a few days earlier but they were ALL eating the dry. I followed up with Live food again just to be sure they all ate well.

I have also found that wild omnivorous fish get the vegetation in their diet in ways the tank breds WILL NEVER do! Dont be surprised to find a wild Angel or Discus feeding on Algae or pieces of plant matter floating in the tank! It sure caught me off guard but after reading and researching it IS quite normal and makes sense!

Their Environment
In the wild each fish is accustomed to seeing certain things such as plants, sand, driftwood, rocks etc... If you move the fish from that environment to a new one lacking something, it can cause unneeded stress to your fish. Do some research to figure out what the following are for the fish you want:

-Substrate
-Are there plants and how many
-Lighting (is there a canopy over the river/lake they came from subduing it)
-Is there Rocks, how much
-Is there driftwood, how much
-PH
-Water Temp
-GH (general hardness)
-KH (alkalinity)

Of course some of the conditions you may not be able to change without major buffers and if takes that and you can not keep it steady, DONT GET the fish!

Even as far as your decorations and substrate go, you should try your best to keep it like the natural (ie: if they have sand where they come from pick that over gravel). This will keep them calm with the change as imagine how frightening it must be for them to move to an alien world they dont understand!

Quarantine
As most wild fish carry illnesses in from their natural habitat that they may even be resistant to, there really is no way to tell if by adding them that you will introduce illness to your main stock.

Also by quarantine you have the ability to feed them what they want without competing with the main stock.

On quarantine, you should increase the temp of the tank and hit them with Metronidozole and a Formalin/Malachite Green solution. This will treat internal and external parasites. If you feel confident enough you can medicate ONLY if you see illness but this is much harder...

Keep the fish in a separate tank for 2 weeks minimum and 1 month or longer to be safe before adding to the others.

Conclusion
Keeping wild fish is satisfying in many ways and enables you to see what the fish are REALLY like. It does not come without some challenges. The key to keeping wild fish is to emulate their environment A CLOSE as you can by way of water parameters, plants, ornaments etc... Even wilds are highly intelligent and fun fish to have. They require special needs for their survival in your tank but come equipped with experiences that your tank bred fish wont have EVER. Your tank bred fish may learn some of the wilds behaviors which could pay off to benefit your tank. If you are willing to give it a try, good luck and enjoy