I can understand everyone's concern about the environment and the impact on our reefs and fish that our hobby has. How can we control and manage the hobby better so that people without the means to take care of marine fish don't all rush out and buy a fish based on a movie. (Besides raiding or harassing/threatening a store, which I don't agree with btw).

What about a permit/license idea? You already need a license to keep a dog (If you have a dog and didn't know that you need a license, you better go get one :lol: ). Why not for wild caught corals and fish as well? The enforcement comes at the time of purchase. The store requires you to show them your license before they'll sell you a wild caught coral or fish. The downside is probably that LFS business might go down and it could be costly for gov't to implement (Not sure why it would be costly though as they already do it for dogs). Drastic I know but if it is true that the ocean's fish and coral are near extinction at some point in the future, its a reasonable measure to implement now, and is a better alternative then a complete ban in the future.

Checked out Richmond today.
No Nemo adverts but Big Al's has four tanks full of clowns. :cry:

sam the permit thing is something i've thought about in the past. personally i'd be all for it, although it would obviously drive prices up significantly, and possibly put some LFSs out of business.

the one consolation we have as far as clowns go, is that they reproduce easily in captivity, unlike tangs.

Not only that. Clownfish tend to have rather small territories. For a fish like a perc or an ocellaris, it's entirely possible that a reasonable sized territory will fit inside the confines of a small aquarium. For sure a 20g, more than likely a 10g, and I bet even a 5g could suffice for a time for a smaller clownfish if set up correctly.

But, a powder blue tang, on the other hand, ........

I would think that if you really wanted to make a point, contacting the media with a large petition would be more effective than the SPCA or animal rights group.

That being said, I think the goal is to make people think before they buy. Trevor is right, our tanks however hard we work to keep them clean are not the ocean. The only difference (hopefully) is that we thought about what we were getting into before we brought the fish home.