Clown Loach breeding and export study

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Miles;2228645; said:
mmm.. they all wild caught. :D
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I don't believe that they are all wild caught. I believe that there are some farms using hormone injections. I just don't see it as being cost effective. I have no evidence supporting the fact that there are fish farms in Asia breeding them whatsoever. At this point I believe that it is happening, I just don't know the scale of the operation. The type of hormones that one would need to breed loaches is very expensive.

http://www.argent-labs.com/argentwebsite/hormones.htm
 
Sent this email to this company. They have clown loaches in their header. I am hoping to find the breeder(s) of loaches in this country.

"I am looking to find out the origin of commercially bred clown loaches using hormone injections. I understand that they are bred in the Czech Republic. I am looking to substantiate the claim for informational purposes. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated."

http://www.milan-ullman.com/
 
This article details the export of Clown Loaches from Indonesia, over 20 million a year!

This is one of the best articles I have seen on clown loach capture and export, and even features pictures of the capture method.

http://www.bollmoraakvarieklubb.org/artiklar/praktbotia/clown loach.htm



Native home of the Clown loach! The fishing nets in the photo is for catching edible fish, not especially Clown loaches. Photo; Mikael Håkansson

The vast majority of Clown loaches for sale are caught in the wild, around 20 million Clown loaches are exported every year from Indonesia. Some breeding is done mainly in Thailand with the help of hormones to stimulate matings. Raised Clown loach are still quite expensive compared to those that are caught in the wild. Reports that successful hormone induced breeding has been made for example in the Czech Rep., Russia and in Florida, but it is difficult to substantiate these reports. An increase in farmed Clown loaches is of course wished for. Even though the species is not especially threatened because of the numbers caught in the wild, there are reports from certain areas, mainly in Sumatra, that their numbers are decreasing. Indonesia has forbidden the catching of Clown loaches over 15 cm.s for export, this is to protect to spawn ready fish. Even if wild caught fishes can be a threat to some local occurrences, the question on wild caught or not Clown loaches is not so simple, because for those poor families that have fishing as their sole income, the Clown loach gives an imortant economic contribution.



Information is that the catch on Borneo is made generally between the end of March to the beginning of July when the water recedes after the rain period which is from December to February. Some years young fish can be caught in the rain period of January-February. In Sumatra the high season is earlier, from November to January. In earlier years there was often a shortage of Clown loaches in the shops in Autumn and Winter before the catch started, but now they have started to keep fish in fishcorfs, and in the larger cities equipped with aquarium plants in large cement pools, so that now there is a year round availability. Besides, there is an economical gain, the fish grow under this time and the larger the fish the more it is worth.



Catching the wild fish is interesting. You take hollow bamboo cane up to two metres in length and make a little oppening in each segment of the bamboo. The bamboo is then placed in the water and the Loaches hide in there. When the bamboo is lifted out of the water you can then carefully shake out the fish. This method can be a little different from place to place but is on the principal.
 
davo;2229029; said:
Really interesting thread... so when will clown loaches become threatened/endangered?
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From what I can tell the exporting countries are being proactive. The maximum exportable size for clown loaches is 10cm. The reason for this is twofold. The clown loach is not excatly a staple food fish, but they are eaten by the locals when caught. The other reason is that they recognize that the fish exporting business is a boon to the local economy. For both reasons, they want to protect the breeding population of clown loaches.
 
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