Captive Bred Cleaner Wrasses

http://reefbuilders.com/2013/07/25/captive-bred-cleaner-wrasse/

I am floored.  Was tough sitting on this as long as I did (so I can only imagine how tough it was for Jake, who knew about it weeks before me!)
 
Matt

Very neat! Do we have any journals or published data for what he was doing? I guess they might keep that on the low, for the sake of market... but still would be neat to read through what he did 'accidentally' to achieve this! 
 
Thanks for posting Matt! 

Very cool indeed.

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

 
Well, pretty much everything I know is in the post. It's credible because of a) who it is and b) how it was claimed to have been achieved, as well as c) size of the fish in Jake's video PLUS d) the sharing of multiple fish with the same deformity (what are the odds that someone is going to go through the trouble of collecting very juvenile cleaner wrasses and particularly deformed ones, only to get them to an aquaculture facility to show them off?).  Nevermind the prior 2010 claim I pointed to of a 53 day success which seems more credible than the Hep Tang claim (wouldn't be a "species first" under MBI rules, but probably would be considered such in the greater context).

To over generalize, once someone breaches a frontier, we hope others will follow.  Eg. Iris did A. tomentosus, I turn around and do O. longirostris while Andy does B. ventula and then Frank does X. mento and before you know it, breeding any filefish or triggerfish just seems far more plausible.  Could this be the breach in the dam that unleashes captive bred wrasses??? 

I noticed the remark in the article about the cost being somewhat of an issue... I think species that are normally hard to keep should be able to easily be sold at a somewhat higher price if captive bred. It should mean that the fish is used to captivity and eating captive foods without issue. Things like cleaner wrasses, Moorish Idols, copperband butterflies, etc. are things I wouldn't even regret or think about spending extra money on if they were captive bred.

 

You would think that, but people generally seemed to balk at paying $100 or even $50 for a captive-bred Mandarin from ORA.  An incredibly frustrating reality on the ground.  For the bulk of hobbyists, it does seem they buy on PRICE and often little else, which is arguably deplorable.

So...if that's the case, I feel it really falls back on the players further up the chain, starting with the retailers.  Unfortunately, if retailer A makes the decision, for example, to not sell any wild caught Banggai Cardinalfish, often times they're then driving the customer AWAY and into the arms of a retailer who will give them what they want.  Which is why we see LARGE retailers like LiveAquaria making a stand, selling captive-bred Banggais at a virtual LOSS simply to support the project/effort and to make a stand to say "no more wild caught endangered fish for sale".  It SUCKS that they find themselves in the position that selling them at more or less cost is what it takes ($19.99 retail on sale...if you consider the costs of packing etc...that's really "cost").  It also speaks volumes about the AVERAGE hobbyist. Fish breeders seems to be a bit more enlightened, but we are definitely in the tiny minority, and even still, not all fish breeders share the appreciation for what's at stake (and I got in trouble with some breeders the last time I wrote the same darn thing, but I'll say it again all the same).

kthomas, I agree with you for the most part... I wouldn't think twice at paying a higher price for a fish that is tank raised, but how many of our fellow hobbyists would do this as well? Fellow breeders and usually reefers are known to put their money where their mouth is... but in general the "oh, lets get a salt tank and put this fish in it" kind of people really drive the market... and their not paying for that tank raised premium as they should... instead the wild caught alternatives are cheaper- so why not. (in their minds eye that is, not mine)... 
 
Believe me I have seen this all too many times in retail... over and over again. We need to be able to take our captive bred specimens and replicate this, at a competitive rate against wild caught (as difficult as this may be) in order to actually conserve our precious natural resources out on the reefs...  you know? 
 

oh ha... you beat me to what I was going to say Matt...  well, I'll just echo the same message then. I wish we could get larger corporations and any large chain stores ( I won't name names....) to realize the damage their essentially allowing, by 'catering' to the public's demand on the market. 

 
The lure of money is the most important thing to 99% of businesses.  No one goes into business to lose money (well, without doing it for the sole reason to lose money but that is a whole different story).   The market is such if "GiantPetCorp" stops selling something to take a stand, they lose way more than just that fish.  "SuperGiantPetCorp"  still sells the wild one, and brings more customers into their store at the same time (Dog food, Birds etc).  Until CB stuff is the same price as wild caught it will always be this way. 
 
I didn't start my company to lose money, and I'm certainly not going to sell stuff at a loss.  Finding out what people will pay for what fish (in this case) is the key.  I don't carry 50% of the fish out there because I can't make money on them.  So when I can sell my CB stuff, it will be worthwhile for me to release them on the market.
 

 
True, true... I can't argue that!  
 
 
 
Again, so true... I wouldn't start my company out to lose money either... hence why the problem exists in the first place. There's not enough lure to tank raised to drive the price up, and retailers can't sell at a level that would 'compete' with what they can get... I know... it's just a vicious cycle....  
 
I feel ya Arc.... I do. It's still a tough situation for all parties though. 
 
But enough about business, I wasn't wanting to start anything!! lol.... Awesome accomplishment for the salty side of the fish world! 

Wow. Damn. I'm sorry I missed this post, Matt. Damn. Well, more proof that we ought to be at the stage where anything can be raised.

--Andy, the bucket man.
"Not to know the mandolin is to argue oneself unknown...." --Clara Lanza, 1886

 
One thing not mentioned in this thread is the export and wholesale price of many fish haven't virtually changed in 20 plus years, even when the peso was devalued in PI the prices stayed the same.  They are also packed at a much denser packing rate, which drops the price of them even more.  Its hard to compete with that.
 
When I was in wholesale, TB clowns and psuedochromis were so hard for us to sell, we usually ended up selling them at a lose at wild caught prices simply to recoup a little bit of the investment.