And hopefully your LFS doesn't think of you as a moocher (behind your back). I was in retail my whole career, so as a customer try to also look at it from a retailer's perspective.

I know my LFS owner hides when I walk in the store. I can hear him upstairs playing WoW while I am down around the coral tanks starved for attention :) I worked at Petland of all places for a couple years while going to university so I have that mentality as well :) Everyone is your best customer and they all deserve a deal, according to them anyways!

WoW Gross....... Maybe call of Duty Zombies haha.

Interesting thread to read. Lots of interesting stuff to say Colby, I wish more of the LFS owners would pop in here and put their input in too.

No, they would be around a year old probably, maybe more. A few week old tang wouldn't even be through metamophosis.

Almost everything posted here is from a business perspective.

Does nobody kind of see the writing on the wall for this hobby from an environmental sustainability standpoint?

We play a fairly major role in the destruction or depletion of ocean ecosystems.

Something is going to give sooner than later.

Well, if you don't want to deplete the oceans, you can always drop by my place....haha. I always have lots of tank cultured/propagated SPS available. I can't keep my frag rack clear, and some of my colonies are getting way too large.

Would be interesting to know though, just how many wild corals are bought/sold vs aquacultured. Could be hard to estimate though, with all the hobbyist sales. I know myself, I very rarely buy wild caught and the odd time I have, they have not turned out well.

Fish is another story, though, and I think we are a long ways off from tank raised tangs. And who wants a tank with just clowns.

I think you are wrong.
Pollution and runoff from farming, kills off and damages way more than our hobby ever could. The amounts harvested for the aquarium trade pales to the damage done by phosphate laden waters dumped into the oceans from farming and the like.

I have to agree with davej. We are a drop in the proverbial bucket as to what's killing the oceans and the reefs. Are we making an impact, of course we are, is it significant compared to other influences, not really.

I prefer to buy aquarium proven frags from other reefers but sometimes you can't get a frag of a cats paw coral or a big meaty brain. I think we are having even less of an effect on fish populations, barring the bangaii cardinal and introduction of the lionfish to caribbean waters. I fully support proper net collection techniques vs destructive methods such as cyanide. I'd even more rather I could buy is captive bred but that's not possible for all the fish I want to house.

Do I feel bad for being in this hobby, nope. Would I like to see it become more sustainable, of course!

I'm not trying to be overly negative but I will say that this is sort of my fear and the vibe I get surrounding this hobby as well. Maybe it's all the Hawaii stuff but my impression is that the wheels are in motion to severely restrict what we can get going down the road. Maybe it's the forum slowdown (at least in my head) that casts this feeling over me. I sure hope we continue to have the ability to get a variety of livestock. No doubt it's going to continue to get more expensive.

Great topic. I don't have time to respond fully, but I will later. Suffice it to say, my opinion is that this hobby has been on the decline for a number of years, with 2008-2009 being probably the plateau.

There are a number of reasons (which I will expand on), but there are many including economic and environmental. The latter can't be discounted as the pressure will mount on the industry. Yes, the impact can be perceived as minimal, but from the overall perspective of habitat protection, I don't feel that the long term prospect for wild harvested livestock is all that good.