Paul B
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Which I think does work in Europe, but is a risky strategy to employ here in America given how disease polluted the supply chain currently is. Especially for newbies with young aquariums.
I didn't realize Noobs in America had so much disease.
First off, very few fish are captive bred just yet. They are much cheaper to collect than raise especially for the meat of the hobby like tangs, angels and butterflies which scatter eggs and need much more room and the fry needs to live near the surface with the plankton for a while.How is the proliferation of captive bred fish going to impact their disease resistance?
I haven't found any research at all into this.
But besides that, I believe some day all fish will be captive raised as it is simple as long as you have access to the sea and a lot of money and time.
I myself could raise copperband butterflies, achiles tangs, moorish Idols and whale sharks if a Government would give me access to a deserted South Pacific Island of which I have seen dozens of.
But that ain't gonna happen so for now at least, we need to go to a LFS.
But If and when we get captive raised fish there is no need for them to be sterile or quarantined.
Un-quarantined fish are healthier anyway and would have an easier time spawning. I am not even sure if a quarantined fishes spawn will be able to grow to adulthood because the fry gets it's immunity from it's Mother and if she has an impaired or no immune system, neither will the offspring.
Very few people on here, if any, ever spawned a fully quarantined fish "and raised" it. I really doubt a quarantined "and" medicated fish can spawn and be raised. At least I never heard of even one but I could be wrong. A fish fry is in great danger of dying from disease because the immunity it inherits is not really complete or strong so it needs to eat right away and get it's stomach flora healthy. It is not going to do that eating sterile quarantined food. It needs living rotifers, then copepods, then amphipods until it can catch and eat smaller fish. Stomach bacteria, parasites and all.
So I believe when we start selling captive raised fish, they will be complete fish with a working immune system like they have in nature. Those fish will also be immune fish.
As long as captive fish are eating natural "living" foods with living bacteria they will be fine and if we raise them in the sea in pens or screened areas, they will have no problem as they will be in association with pathogens and parasites. (I had on spell check and it added "Parakeets" ;Bucktooth)
If we raise them in tanks, then those tanks should also have pathogens and parasites happily living in there just like fish are supposed to live. Like I keep my tanks. If those tanks could get unfiltered seawater, that would help a lot.
Remember quarantine is not normal or natural. I don't see why we would want to try to raise such creatures when it is cheaper and healthier to raise fish as they are already living in the sea.
My paired fish all spawn and in the distant past I raised some of them. The babies were also immune. I raised clownfish, seahorses, bangai cardinals, blue devils and probably some I forgot because I have not done that in decades.
I collected these seahorses in the sea near my house. The female is transfering the eggs to the male here in my reef. I raised these many times, no problem and no disease