>>2742005Loads of reef fish are hard to breed and you need to figure out details for pretty much every species or at least genus.
For example with Amphiprion sp., you have to keep a healthy pair well fed with an appropriate nesting spot. They will lay a clutch of eggs and guard it until hatching. Then you have to remove the eggs when they are just about to hatch and safely transfer the tiny fry into a thick soup of phyto- and zooplankton (copepods). They need to have food almost swimming into their mouths to feed enough to grow well. Once they are a bit older, you switch yo freshly hatched Artemia that you gut load with nutrients. You need to have those ready daily.
Then you slowly switch to bigger Artemia and slowly introduce frozen and dry food.
If you don't mess up, you got a little swarm of maybe 100 fish. Any mistakes can reduce that number.
That's an example of reef fish that are easy to breed. They will be much more healthy and hardy than wild fish.
With wild catch, its mostly done by poor people living in tropical waters. They usually apply poison to a reef, then collect the stunned fish that might or might not recover. Another method is to spear them with a small harpoon and hope they recover from the injury. Catching without these methods is ineffective and doesn't earn them a living. The poison is damaging the reefs.
Then they pack the fish in plastic bags with air and bring them to a wholeseller, that ships them per airfreight to US/Europe where another wholeseller sells them to retailers. Many fish die at any stage, including in the tanks of the aquarist. Depending on the species maybe 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 survives.
The fishermen get peanuts for their work. The money stays with the merchants.