Retailers do not do anything as they really have no say in the whole thing. Unless there are stores that have employees going to the collection sites. I know of a few major US retailers that DO have this in place and have their own collectors in some areas but that is rare and I am not so sure it happens at all in Canada. I could be wrong though.

I would pay double for SUSTAINABLY caught fish. there are lots of ways to catch a fish and a lot of them are baaaaad. I would pay more for a captive bred, but I know there are limits on what can be raised in captivity.

It's BS to say there's no alternative to knocking out big fish with cyanide. Using clove oil is a well-known solution that has no long-term effects, unlike cyanide.

I have to admit... IF I could cyanide catch the black striped damsel in my tank right now, I would do it in a blink of a eye... too bad I would bomb everyone else.:lol:

No cyanide should not be used at all, but it would depend on how badly I want a certain fish and from where I am purchacing it..from a friend, fellow Canreefer,or if it is a lfs, there are a lot of variables..personally I would like to see cyanide banned altogether....

Ok yeah thats what I thought you meant :biggrin:

I would have been surprised to hear anyone here thinks cyanide is ok to catch any fish.

Its been said already but if a fish is too hard to catch properly with humane techniques, then it should not be caught. IMO those big fish should never be caught anyways...but that came up in a whole different thread :wink:

I just don't see why people want to miss raising a fish from a few inches and enjoying all the growth.

I learned a lesson first hand about buying mature reef fish. Now my new guys are little but larger then a puffer mouth, and I am happy to see the baby cuteness, and ease of feeding. My puffer ate all my mouth sized little guys, and my Naso almost died of starvation. Never again, unless the larger fish is from a member.

I wonder how people discovered cyanide was good for catching fish in the first place... I know it stuns them, but does it kill them if they use too much? In this day and age, you would think there are better options for breeding these fish in captivity.

I do understand from trying to catch my own fish their instict to vanish when a net comes out. It doesn't even have to go into my tank before I suddenly have not a single fish in sight. If clove oil is an option, why don't they just use that instead of cyanide? Is cyanide cheaper or more effective? I know if I was a fish collector I would want to catch my fish without hurting them or the reef.

How do large zoo aqauriums take care of their fish when they need to catch them? The fish are display animals and are valuable, so they must have a way of dazing them without netting or harsh chemicals. At least I would think so.

Its not quite that simple...if you were a collector in say the Philippines, you would most likely be quite poor and not have the same "values" you do now. I have been over there a few times and seen the poverty first hand. Many of these collectors just want to feed their family. If cyanide allows them to make $20 a day instead of $2-3 a day, they are going to use it, regardless of how destructive it is. I am not necessarily defending the collectors but the governments in both the collection countries and import countries do little to help the situation.

Do you think Canada cares much if ornamental fish being imported are caught legally or not?

Many large aquariums collect animals themselves properly or get them from other aquariums/breeding programs.

Clove oil does work to sedate fish but I am not so sure it would be strong enough to stun fish out on a reef. Maybe I am wrong but when I have used it, it works quite slowly. Seems like you would need a lot to use it as a collection tool. Maybe not though, I don't know for sure.

I voted yes because one cannot support the cyanide trade.

Here is how the cyanide trade works.
They squirt cyanide into the reef and 50% of the fish die and the rest are stunned.
By the time the fish reach the shore another 50% die.
A large % of the rest die in the holding tank at the source, the transit to the exporter, the exporters facility, the transit to us, the wholesalers tank, the transit to the LFS and the LFS tanks.
The ones that survive this end up in our tanks.
Like many of you have experienced, the fish appears healthy enough but with months dies of no apparent reason.

In the meantime the reef that has been squirted with cyanide dies together with all the critter that live therein.

The reality is that most of the cost to us of the fish is airfreight so paying double is not necessary. But if the fisher is paid double he most certainly wont use cyanide.

With respect, the posts that say their is not guarantee are not facing the issue

If we just refused to buy the fish species (like mandarins and cryptic wrasses, one half the problem goes away).

I agree 100% but people want what they want. Its easier for most people to not think about it. I think I hear this the most..."it was already in the store and if I didn't buy it someone else would have". I have to admit that I had that kind of an attitude until I saw the effects first hand earlier this year. When we stumbled upon dozens of dead, poisoned fish in the Philippines that one morning, I have never looked at the hobby the same. Kind of like how they sometimes show kids in school accident pictures caused by drunk driving or what a smokers lung looks like.

Having said that, I still bought a Copperband a month or so ago (promised I would only try one more time) :rolleyes: So I am being fairly hypocritical. To be honest I justified it by telling myself they were the best batch I had ever seen and did not look cyanide caught. I know better though, CCB from the Philippines are pretty much a guarantee to be cyanide caught.

I'm not sure if I'm one that you mean but I did say something like that .. but you may be misinterpreting what I meant. I said that the idea of certification sounds neat but if it's self-imposed by the industry then it has less teeth to it. Ie., as far as I know, I already buy fish that I believe to be non-cyanide caught. I have to take the word of the person who sells me the fish, who has to take the word of the person who imported it, who has to take the word of the exporter .. etc. .. How do we really know? Even if there's a piece of paper that says "we promise we didn't" how can I really know?

But the flip side is .. what fish is guaranteed never caught with cyanide? If I refuse to buy a fish that "might" have been caught with cyanide, .. what's left? .. Is the solution that if I want a fish, I have to travel to Fiji with my fishing rod and take back only what I've caught myself?

Why is there even cyanide so easily accessible? What is its commercial value? Isn't this the stuff movie spies keep in their teeth in case they get caught? Why wouldn't something like that be heavily regulated if not outright banned?