Where dose it come from?
 

Lately I've been reading a lot of posts and articles about certain critters getting harvested off of coral reefs instead of being captive bread. Does anyone know where I can find a list of creatures to avoid buying so as to not support the destruction of the worlds coral reefs?

examples of a couple specifics I'm worried about is cleaner wrasses and anemones, especially large carpet anemones

These issues concern me as well. Here is a mariculture outfit out of Florida that offers a fairly good range of fish coral and invertebrate. www.orafarm.com

Rick

going to be hard to do but can be done , as stated previously ora fish are captive bred but the selection isnt huge as we still have trouble breeding certain kinds of fish.corals are easy enough and same with some types of nems,carpets would be harder to aquire that arent wild caught.....alot of lfs try to buy locally which is great but some will say they dont buy wildcaught and they do so use your own judgement.

when buying try to buy from other reefers its a safe way to guarantee less from the wild, but there are never any guarantees more arent being ordered.as time goes by in the hobby we are slowly learning how to breed and what not to harvest.


good to see that your thinking this need more like you:):)

I'm afraid if you're trying to avoid wild caught animals, this hobby will be ultimately disappointing.

There are very few species in the salt water hobby that are captive bred. As far as I know, not a single wrasse species is bred in captivity, nor are any of the tangs, or angelfish (though that might have changed recently). Really, the only animals that I know of that are reliably bred in captivity and available for sale are Bengali cardinals, clown fish, and (I think) some of the damsels.

Even captive breeding shrimp is hit and miss.

If you can find coral that you know is several generations in-tank, you're in luck there, but as far as anemones, unless it's a species that regularly propagates by splitting they're also probably all wild caught. I don't think anyone has ever bread an anemone (at least not the kinds we want in our tanks) via sexual reproduction in captivity.

I would say a good 80-90% of the fish and inverts you see in any given salt water specialty store came directly from the ocean. The longer the hobby is around, the more species we add to the captive bred list, but there are lots of species that will most likely never be successfully reared in tanks.

We can mitigate the collateral damage the hobby does by only purchasing fish from reliable vendors that were sourced from regions that we know to have 'responsible' collection methods, but there will always be a pretty high mortality rate associated with wild collection and transportation. I don't know how many fish die for each fish that ends up in someone's tank, but I bet that globally it's pretty high. The proportion of fish that successfully acclimate to home aquarium but also live out their full, natural life span will be even lower. And even if the fish does live for it's full, natural lifespan, it doesn't change the fact that every collected specimen is essentially 'dead' from a gene pool perspective.

Basically, there are ethical ramifications with keeping marine animals. Most everyone has had to come to terms with, and rationalize that to some extent to keep doing it.

In my opinion, eating tuna is as bad, or worse, than keeping a flashy hawaiian wrasse. The commercial fishing industry removes many millions more tons of animals from the ocean every year than the salt water aquarium trade ever will, and usually devastates entire ecosystems in the process. Most of us still eat seafood, and at least in this hobby the collectors (the responsible ones) have a vested interest in protecting the habitats their animals are harvested from.

only keep clownfish and aquacultured corals.

whats even worse is the survival rate in captivity. out of 40 yellow tangs that make it to a shop, how many do you think live past 6 months? I know there are alot of great reefers here and else where, but we are just a fraction of the hobby...

I agree with you. I'm honestly not buying anymore fish and after these guys pass (most have been in my care for 2-3 years) I don't plan on replacing them. Maybe some captive bred designer clowns

Meh...
If you follow climate change, we should really be the last generation that actually gets to enjoy a natural reef.

Reefs and ocean across the planet are dying at exponential rates.

we are partly to blame, and if the complete halt of this hobby would make any kind of realistic difference to the big picture I'd have an easier time caring but the fact of the matter is we're a drop in a very large pond and the acidification and rise of the oceans temperature will have taken care of reefs long before we ever harvest them to death.

cynical yes.
backed by science.

haha sounds like a dogfood commercial saying lol love it:) got to agree with you though what were doing with this hobby is nothing compared to whats going on around the world and the effect THAT has on our reefs:)hard to find somewhere to stand these days:(

Like I have said a million times... in the past 150 years we have managed to destroy something that has lasted millions of years.

Coral reefs have been around.... since forever. Underwater life was the first to exist on this planet that we know of (precambrian).

what baffles me is the amount of people that just don't care. I hate the saying "oh well its not my problem"

what do you suggest for the average individual to make a meaningful difference?
Don't take a sense of reality as a lack of caring.

Think about a difference you can make towards the world, that can be your homework for the day

so...
you've got nothing?

There is alot that a single individual can do. Your so closed minded with the idea that "its global warming," HA HA HA do you know how many times this has happened. The world has evolved to make it through climate changes and has proven to last.

You're talkng about natural disasters.
not a man made one.

So you still have zip huh?

I'm not talking about natural disasters. The world is always shifting and changing. Where we live it used to be a giant sea. My point is we have evolved the world around us, not the other way around. There is actually a really good dvd you should watch about a reef in fiji that had been declining in health. A few biologists came in, examined it, compared to to another close by reef that was in alot better condition. Their final conclusion came to the fact that there was a river from the island that lead into the ocean... guess what was happening upstream, a lumber factory. All of the crap that was in the water was killing off the reef. Its like constantly stiring your sand, not much will be happy in your tank.

The thread from a few days ago about taking cleaner shrimp out of the reefs and bringing them into captivity is a great example of how we are impacting the world. Over fishing is another huge impact, fisherman are not seeing the same size of fish that they used to.

Honestly if you want me to write a paper on basic geology and the changes we have seen in time I will. Everything that is going wrong can be provented. As of now, yes the human race will die off. Once we have killed everything around us it will happen. Like I said, we have managed to live for thousands of years without effects on the world. Yet in the past 150 years we have probably caused the most amount of damage to it than it has ever seen before

can be prevented but wont be.
you're missing my point.

Human beings do not shape geology...lol
I thank you kindy for NOT writing a paper on the subject.
And life was taken down to microbial levels in at least one of the natural disasters you're referencing.
how would an event like that affect us?

I wonder, once that lumber mill in Fiji was discovered to be the culprit, how fast did it shut down operations to improve their ecological approach?

my moneys on it still being run in the exact same way to this day....profitably.

I'm still witing for you to tell me how I can make a difference though....

You just answered yourself. One small change could have been made, but i'm sure nothing would have happened because it would have effected the economy. Wait did I just bring that up... yes. If something is a negative effect on some sort of profit they won't do it.

Btw I haven't listed reasons due to the fact that sounding like a broken record is not me. You know them, people preach about them, but yet no one gives a damn. Its because we depend on these things so much that giving them up is out of the question. EG. cars with one driver (how about driving trucks when you don't need to)

:pop2:

Actually I smashed up some boulders and moved them around my backyard over the weekend and changed the earths geology. Sorry I don't write books.

damn kien, you have now offset the worlds axis causing it to tilt a bit... shame on you lol

Funny, women tell me that all the time, except not usually in so many words...

Depends what type of context is being used

gobytrons answer=:lalala::violin:



lorenzos answer=:noidea::agrue:





:fencing:






sooooo guys just :kiss: and :tea: then we can all :rockon:



:peace::peace::peace:

I think you mean you changed your backyards geology.
Unless you're a tectonic plate, you likely didnt alter the earths geology at all.

but hey, nothing wrong a few delusions of grandeur...:lol:

If you think I answered myself, you don get the question.
I dont feel that you or I choosing to buy only captive bred organisms will make any relative difference when the governements and the corporations they pander to take no accountability for themselves.

Even the "green revolution" you hear about is just a cash grab and a way to sell more product for more money.

Same as, IMO, charging more for captive bred aquaria.
It sounds nice on the surface, but you've still got to contend with the lumber mills of the world.

And there's alot more lumber millsout there than reef hobbyists...conscientious or otherwise.

Last I checked my backyard was a part of the earth. I could be wrong though and may need to have this independently verified. Stay tuned..

^^^^
LOL

I stayed sober this weekend. My chemistry is off balanced with no traces of C2H5OH

Gobytron, I'm done talking to you. I'm putting my filter on

What an excellent point.
spoken like a true layman.

Thank you for the science lesson Bill Nye.

With such a succinct point of view, you must have a newsletter...
how can I subscribe?

Let me know if you ever do verify your facts.
something tells me it's a rare occurence over there.

just noticed this love it lol

Thanks!

The veiw of "one person can't make a difference" really baffles me. Think of it like recycling. If one person never recycled anything their whole life you'd prob make a pile of garbage at least 50 feet tall! Consider recycleing now and that pile becomes way way smaller! If one person starts promoting in a lfs near them the selling of only farm bread marine creatures I think they could easily make a difference. If you hear a coral is "rare" maybe you shouldnt buy it, or cleaner wrasses, without them natural ocean reefs can't survive and they do horrible in our tanks anyways. Every little thing helps

You can walk into just about any salt water fish store and buy all the frags and captive bred clownfish you want right now. So stores are already doing something to "make a difference". It's not that stores don't want to sell lots of captive bred fish (cheaper if done on a large scale)its that they can't get them to breed in captivity(people are working on this daily). Rare fish and corals aren't usually rare because there's none to be found in the ocean, it's because they are usually deep water species so most of the collectors who only have access to snorkels and hold their breathe can't reach them. You need a trained deep water scuba diver to collect them and that won't be cheap so there is little market demand, hence rare. Most people on this board buy/trade/sell among each other so every time that happens people are doing something to save a reef. If you own a salt water fish tank then you are directly responsible for reef destruction. Even if you are sure none of your livestock or rock came from the ocean you have still put money into and supported the industry responsible. If people are actually serious about supporting the reefs they would sell every fish related item they had and get out of the hobby forever. Easy to say, hard to do. No different than driving a car instead of an SUV, you are still supporting the oil companies, haven't had to make any personal sacrifice but get to feel better of yourself and less of others. I guess the question is how big of a commitment is one willing to make to save a reef, a little one, a large one, total? I have captive bred fish and coral frags from others, does that make me more enviromentally friendly than other reef keepers? I think not.

okay sounds like you dont support someone putting effort in to saving reefs? Would you like us to all say sorry for trying?

From an ecological point of view we are all responsible for the destruction of the worlds reefs. From an ethical/moral point a view, those of us who take the effort to buy and source captive bred corals and fish or buying from other hobbyists are doing only slightly less damage then those of us who do not. But its a step in the right direction. Im not perfect I know that some of my coral is captive and some is not. However if you were to put two frags in front of me - one captive the other wild. I would take the captive, because it is now the 2nd or later generation of one wild harvested coral. With that in mind we now have to weigh the difference between wild reproduction witch is undoubtably - on a healthy reef, exponentially larger then we can achieve in our tanks, and fragging one wild coral over and over at a slower rate. Which do you place more priority on? Giving the reefs a chance to recover while fragging what we have or pulling more to furnish our tanks with. Fish are an entirely different story, until we can perfect captive breeding the ocean will have to do our work, we now need to keep our fatality rate to a minimum.

It is a fine line but one that we all must draw on our own moral code.

I would like to show my kids the beauty of a coral reef one day, that is not in my living room. If we are not carful that might not be a possibility 20 years from now.

THANKYOU I think your facts are brilliant and well said!

If a fish doesnt want to breed in our tanks obviously its not the right environment for them and we shouldnt put them through being in a home they dont like just for our entertainment and collections.

I'm going to make a difference in the world because I'm taking tuns of biology courses in university and becoming a zoologist and I'm going to go shut down the lumber mill in figi so HAAAA

Actually what I dont support is disillusioned people who own SW tanks and think they are doing the world a favor. If you actually want to support the wild reefs why do you have a fish tank at all. Do think its right to keep animals locked up in extremely tiny cages? The fact is if you have a SW fish tank then you dont support natural reefs. Why do you feel a need to keep a tank at all except for our own selfish reasons. Keeping a reef tank is the rquivilant to cutting down a few acres of rainforrest and then planting a tree at home to say that you are doing your part for the enviroment. Bottom line is, if you actually cared about wild reefs you wouldnt own a reef tank ever. We only keep them for our own selfishness. Knowone would have to try and captive breed anything if they just left everything in the wild to begin with.

honestly i think the impact of hobbyists is minimal on the ocean. no amount of fishing or fragging of while corals would even cause a dent in the population.

so if you're really concerned with saving the environment, stop driving, burping and farting

honestly, i think running metal halides probably has a bigger impact on ocean (in the long run) than harvesting fish and corals from the ocean

I dont run metal halides and if I'd known in the beginning that the majority of the critters are plucked out of the ocean I prob wouldt have started a reef tank. I have one now though so I plan on being as environmentaly aware of everthing I do with it as I can. So far every coral and the one fish I have I'm fairly sure by chance didnt come from the ocean and I plan to keep it that way.

Ah, don't feel bad, Lisa. Everybodys doing it!:lol: Besides in 40 years we'll probably be heros because we saved a species residing in our tanks from extinction. I gotta tell ya it's also a lot more fun trading and buying among fellow reefers because you get to meet a lot of interesting people with lots of opinions!

are you gonna stop driving a car? are you gonna stop using lights in your house? are you gonna stop flushing the toilet?

all of these things have a far greater impact on the environment than taking fish or corals from the ocean.

ever heard "theres plenty of fish in the sea"... literally its true

your profile says you're a LFS manager..... how is your store suppose to make money if fish arent gonna be taken from their natural environment?

It's a freshwater fish store so none of the fish are from the wild, all farm breed.

The only reason I created this post was to know if there was any lfs marine fish stores in alberta, calgary that buy their critters from reef conscious supliers. If you don't support conserving reefs please just keep your comments to yourself. If you know of any stores please msg me

i support saving reefs... but buying wild caught fish and corals is not destroying reefs.