[Delphinus]

Which shop do you mean Alan? Just curious (send me a PM or an email if you prefer)

I am personally having a really difficult time wrestling with my conscience of late, owing to stores that I have been visiting as part of my "reef addiction window shopping" ritual. As you may or may not know I am currently in the U.S. for an install. I have been visiting a number of shops down here, in one random North American city, and I have to tell you, it has been a real eye-opening experience .... the hobby has a lot of cleaning up its act to do. To be fair, I have found one shop that I felt was worthy of praise. (And I wish I had brought my camera, Alan, to show you and Bob what this one guy was doing with nanos ... maybe I will go buy a cheapy disposable camera, and go back and snap a few shots for you guys). But the other stores. ... man, oh man. :( I would estimate I have seen one in a hundred, kind of statistical number, of reef-related animals that don't have some kind of uphill battle ahead of them for survival. And, sadly enough, the vast majority of those animals, are tangs. Tangs covered in ick, tangs missing fins, or starving with pinched-in-stomachs. They were taken out of the ocean. For what? How sad.

I saw a tank full of ritteris in one store. These were tiny little anemones (anyone who has seen mine, knows that these are not small animals after a time). But it's not the size that alarmed me (although it probably does mean that they were starving). It was the fact that there were no less than TWELVE in a 30 gallon tank, that was otherwise completely empty except for a very large wad of caulerpa. Some of the anemones were so desperate to find the appropriate subtrate that they had attached themselves to the caulerpa and were floating around in the whirlpool of current on this wad of algae. Why the .... did they have to bring in twelve? They're all doomed when you pile them into a single tank like that. It ought to be a crime. I was so depressed after I saw this.

I don't know what the answer is to these kinds of problems. Perhaps, I should have gone to MACNA instead this weekend, and voiced my disgust at the overall state of affairs. I think, perhaps, to insure sustainability of the hobby, and to have a greener footprint, we do need to bring in some of regulation for the hobby. You want to sell wild-caught ocean livestock? Fine, but you have to have some kind of accrediation. And this accreditation would have to be meaningful -- i.e., if it's found that livestock is living in sub-standard conditions, then that accreditation could be revoked. And we could do our part, as hobbyists, to form bona-fide clubs, that we could then go out and educate the public, about only purchasing from these accredited outfits.

I don't know if this is a good idea, or a practical idea. But, I do see it as one potential way that we could reduce the unnecessary carnage out there.

We definitely need to clean up our act somehow.