At The Pet Shop in Allston, next to goldfish, blue tetra, and cichlid varieties of fish, is a tank of cardinal tetra. These fish, natives of the upper Orinoco and Negro rivers in South America, are only about an inch long, and are characterized by red bodies and a long silvery blue stripe.
Pet shop owners sometimes prefer tank-raised fish instead of wild-caught fish because wild fish are much more sensitive since they live in very specific natural environmental conditions. These conditions—a certain amount of sunlight and water with a specific level of acidity, among other things—are hard to replicate and add an extra burden to the shipping costs of wild cardinal tetra.
At every transition point in the shipping process, the fish must be re-acclimated to their new environment, according to Gentile. This conditioning puts undue stress on the fish and makes them more vulnerable to disease, he said.
Tank-raised fish do not have these same problems, and are not as likely to get sick during and after the shipping and reconditioning process.
Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.