Currently about 80% of the freshwater ornamental fish traded worldwide are bred specimens. A larger part of them is bred in Malaysia and Singapore. The drought there is extreme, February 2014 was the driest February in the region since 1869! This affects strongly the breeder´s facilities. One of our suppliers wrote:
“The weather issue has affected the fish production, the breeder is facing shortage of water supply as there is no rain, and it has certain impact on certain fish production, for your shipment we might face some supply issue like Fantail 5cm (which we always update every week), Silver Marble Molly, Red Platy, Blue Gourami, Lemon Tetra, Pristella Tetra, Panda Cory and Red High Fin Sucker , the supply is limited at this moment and the breeder not able to tell us how many pcs they can supply to us on every week it will have to wait until they do the harvesting. Weather issue also affect certain level on the fish quality, due to the production issue the breeder might not able to supply us the good size fish on some varieties.”
For more informations on the topic, please check:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/drought-forces-water/1015684.html
However, even bred ornamental fish are a product of nature and one is well advised never to forget this fact!
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
