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Are there any differences between wild caught and F1 H. Zebra? If options are available, to buy wild caught or to buy F1 H. Zebra for breeding and keeping? Thanks.

With wilds you should be getting more unrelated fish which offer a better gene pool for breeding purposes, over F1 if bought from only a few breeders.
Wild caughts have been banned from export for a number of years, so these fish should be fully mature fish ready for breeding, over F1 fish that may have a number of years to fully mature.
Depending where you live, there has been a number of wild caughts coming available especially in the UK, this makes you wonder if alot of these fish are getting illegally smuggled fom Brazil.
With this to bear in mind it is your decision which source you buy from, also wild caughts are generally more expensive.
Good luck when you finally buy some zebs.

Thank you Stevie.K. I will surely go for the wild caughts. Are wild caughts difficult to keep? What are the things I need to do to ensure their good health and most importantly to keep them alive?

First of all i would say that it is unethical to buy wc zebra's at the moment.
Wild coughts i seen recently arrived in poor condition probably due to bad conditions while smuggled, heavy losses were taken, if you would decide to buy wc fish i would wait untill they are settled for a few weeks in the shop to minimize the risk of losing fish.
Personally i prefer F1 because they are used to tank conditions and breed more easy, wc fish need some time to adjust to tank conditions before they attempt to breed, in the same time you can raise some larger f1 fry from different bloodlines for breeding purposes.

Thank you John. The aquarium will quarantine the wc fish for two weeks before I take delivery of the H. Zebra and I hope two weeks are sufficient to acclimatize the fish to the local water conditions. I will consider acquiring some F1 if they are available in adult size.

There certanly have been a lot of Wilds zebras coming into the USA over the past 10 months or so. There is no question in my mind these are illegally caught/exported fish. They are showing up at 2-2.5 inch size which imo leaves little doubt on this issue.

As John noted, wilds can arive in poor condition. There are two problems here.First, since they are caught and moved around to avoid being found out, they often don't get fed or cared for properly. This can lead to fish that die soon after one buys them. The greater worry is disease.

Fish can come in with illnesses not commonlt found in aquariums. The most common issue can be parasites or worms picked up in the wild. Two week of Q is often not long enough for these things to be manifest and certainly not for them to be cured/rid of problems. My rule of thumb for Qing wild fish is at least 30 consecutive days problem free. This is the minimum and some folks will tell you they Q wilds for as many as 3 months.

No importers or stores will ever Q fish for long enough as it is not economical for them to do so, especially when high dollar fish are involved. If you can find wild caughts being resold by hobbyists you are much better off. Normally these have been in tanks for some time and are healthy and eating well.

As for genetic diversity, if one is starting off with unrelated fish- wild or tank raised, they can likely breed several generations before needing new genes in the pool. The odds are good that breeding 3 generations of zebras would take anywhere from 7 - 10 years which leaves one a lot of time to find and add new blood

Thank you TwoTankAmin. As the wc H. Zebra are hard to come by and the importer can only quarantine the fish for two weeks, how do I quarantine them at home after I take delivery of the fish to ensure their survival and good health, and what are the medications to use to get rid of the parasites, worms and other diseases that reside in the fish?

If you are willing to take the risks, you will need to pay extra attention to monitor your fish including sunken eyes, sunken bellies, color shading, losing fins and so on. As far as treatments, it's hard to say without identifying the problems first. I also recommend getting F1s from yor local breeders to minimize all kinds of risks and troubles.

f1 all the way

Thanks Twinspots_goby and kingie11.

Hi all,
Agree with Amin - you may find the discussion here http://www.mchportal.com/fishkeeping-ma ... g-iii.html of interest. Wild caught vs Tank bred.

Regards

Hi, I have added my country to my profile which I missed out. I am from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Thanks.