Damn you evolution!!!

Planet Earth: Let them evolve they said. It'll be fun they said. FRAK!
Venus, Mars: LOL !!!

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=948Nm...%3D948Nm34arfA

RIP dude.

I'm not sure if they accept donations, but you could check out Reef Culture Technologies based in Hawaii and managed by Frank Baensch. RCT works to develop culture techniques for captive breeding of reef fishes.

The trouble is that it often costs more money to raise captive bred fish than it costs to import wild caught fish. Captive bred fish are a renewable resource, but so many people care too little to pay a few bucks more. Fish like Angelfish, Tangs, and Basslets involve such a lengthy rearing time that a reasonable captive bred cost is not very likely except maybe at large facilities where quantity of fish produced could decrease the per fish cost.

You have the LFS owner who can't see past dollar signs (although for good reason). He sees the wild caught fish for half the price on the fish list and can't seem to grasp the fact that landed cost (shipping, permits, losses) will often make a basic captive bred fish cheaper, like Clownfish, Dottybacks, Seahorses, Gobies, Blennies, Cardinals, and even Mandarins. He refuses to pay a reasonable price for the captive bred fish so few small scale captive breeding programs actually have any sort of profit. Most of the LFS owners involved here on CanReef tend to be fairly advanced, and more open to small scale captive breeding programs.

You have the typical reefer who, on average, has been in the hobby for 18 months. He has been dumping money into his system for 18 months now and sees a wild caught fish for a few bucks cheaper than a captive bred fish. Having been in the hobby for only 18 months he doesn't understand the pros and cons of captive bred VS wild caught fish. He just wants the cheaper fish.

Of course there are exceptions to every "rule" and people are starting to change, but it takes time, and it takes people talking. Getting new up-to-date information to LFS owners (hey some of them are still in the 80s) and reef keepers by having more people care enough to share sustainability concerns is fundamental.

All or nothing resolves little and provides no progressive action.

Well put but I guess I am an exception to the rule as having been a freshie for 12 yrs I learned to go tank bred where I could it saved me a ton of money in the long run

This is why the choice SHOULD be taken out of people's hands...

Actually I don't think this is true. In most cases it's up to the customer. The LFS will bring in what the customer wants. The fact is, the LFS pays more for the captive bred clowns versus the wild caught clowns. So they charge more for the captive bred ones because they pay more. The customer walks into the store and sees a cheap clown fish and they see a more expensive one that looks identical. Some customers will ask questions on why this clown is more than the other one and some customers won't. Some customers once informed will buy the more expensive captive bred clown but some still will not. I can guarantee that if every customer choose only to buy captive bred fish and nothing else. That every LFS would have a fully stocked line of what ever captive bred fish was available to them. At the end of the day the customers make the decisions on what the LFS brings in. If the customers don't buy the LFS goes out of business.

Not necessarily. The scale of the operation is just larger and may not allow for a unit cost decrease in the production of the fish. The costs for many species of fish would still be far above what the average consumer would be willing to spend.

The LFS owner needs to keep the dollar signs in sight. If they don't, and I've seen it first hand, they are done. They run a business to make a profit. To some, the distribution chain of these animals simply don't make it beneficial (from a financial sense) to purchase them.

As for refusing to pay a "reasonable price", what does that mean? A LFS will refuse to pay a price if that price is at or above a price point where they cannot sell that product for a reasonable return (if at all). This isn't a charity.

This is what the average reefer is all about, period. I want it cheaper. Here is a quote from some time ago, but I think for the general reefing public, this sentiment holds true today and can be applied to the wild collected versus the captive bred argument.

"Lets face it, how many of us would pay $99 for a guaranteed NON cyanide caught fish when we can get the same fish with out knowing the real history for $49.... I don't know about you but, my pocket book would certainly over ride the moral dilema of purchasing fish that MAY have been cyanide caught."

The one important factor that you, and others address, is that if wild collection was banned, the industry would collapse. There are not enough species available and actual numbers of those fish to sustain the industry. Period.

If that's really how you feel, how do you justify being in the hobby? Is it one of those, "I will do it for as long as I'm allowed, even though I think it is wrong." sort of things for you?

[Maybe we should quit drilling for oil too?]

What about the millions of people who feed their families from their profits in the aquarium trade?

[You better get rid of all man-made plastics and fibers too; carpet, shoes, furniture, clothing, curtains, picture frames, stereos, TVs, canned foods, cars, cell phones, fridges, furnaces...]

In the past fish were caught with cyanide, blasting, and physically breaking apart the reef structures to catch fish. Nowadays, these things still happen but they are frowned upon and people are changing their ways. Indigenous peoples are learning about sustainable collection so there will still be species to collect in the decades to come.

I believe regulation is the answer. Not only does regulation create jobs rather than removing jobs, it also creates a sustainable practice.

Food fishing, cattle farming, oilfields...they are all much bigger problems than the aquarium trade, and all of these challenges affect the oceans and reefs more than collection does.