100% Certified Cyanide Free Reef Fish for Sale.

[Matt]

I voted no, just because there is no way to differentiate without a certification body and supply-chain monitoring.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by Matt

I voted no, just because there is no way to differentiate without a certification body and supply-chain monitoring.

This sort of exists in the form of the MAC certification but that has just turned into a pointless mess.

There is currently no way to do any kind of cyanide testing on fish in the supply chain. It's not an easy testing procedure and it requires some significant investment in equipment. You can see what is currently being worked on here: http://coralreef.noaa.gov/Library/Pu...yanide_doc.pdf

With that considered there is no way for a retailer to offer 100% cyanide free fish, we don't know if they are or not. Now we can make some pretty educated guesses sometimes, I can tell you that a fish caught in the Sea of Cortez is almost certainly not but I can't prove it. In the case of Indo or Philippine fish I would be less certain. If I ever saw someone selling Indo fish with a No Cyanide guarantee I'd fall down laughing.

Until the infrastructure is in place for testing everybody is on the honor system, sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Retailers are doing everything they can at this point.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

Retailers are doing everything they can at this point.

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.

[justinl]

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.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

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.

Nobody is keeping people at collection sites all the time, they might visit once a year.

I'm curious about what you consider a "major" retailer as well. Some of the places that people think of as big are nothing more than fax machines that send orders to large wholesalers. The wholesale outfit drop ships directly to the customer, the retail op never even sees your livestock.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

Nobody is keeping people at collection sites all the time, they might visit once a year.

I'm curious about what you consider a "major" retailer as well. Some of the places that people think of as big are nothing more than fax machines that send orders to large wholesalers. The wholesale outfit drop ships directly to the customer, the retail op never even sees your livestock.

Uhhhh...how exactly have can you say "nobody"?

I was speaking of a specific retailer who I KNOW has at least one collector in the Solomon Islands that I know of (met) and I believe more. He is there year round. I also am pretty sure they have more than a fax machine

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by Matt

I voted no, just because there is no way to differentiate without a certification body and supply-chain monitoring.

That wasn't the question/vote though. It was a "what if" thing...

[slakker]

I'd pay double if it was certified AND it came with a 15 day (or whatever) guarantee. The certification by itself will not be enough for me to pay double... if the fish dies, I can't perform a necropsy to confirm so I could be scammed. And not neccesarrily by the retailer, but the supplier or others in the supply chain.

[awa1979]

I would rather see less species available and have those species humanly caught and with as little environmental damage as possible, then have a huge selection that were caught in questionable ways.

If we stop buying fish that don't belong in captivity, eventually the demand will fall and collection will ease.

If the hobby doesn't police itself, the politicians will eventually and well we know what happens when politicians become involved with things.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by awa1979

I would rather see less species available and have those species humanly caught and with as little environmental damage as possible, then have a huge selection that were caught in questionable ways.

If we stop buying fish that don't belong in captivity, eventually the demand will fall and collection will ease.

If the hobby doesn't police itself, the politicians will eventually and well we know what happens when politicians become involved with things.

I think that is kind of the way its going...

I also think it will just simply end up being a matter of many fish going onto the endangered species list before the collection of them stops. May not be in my lifetime but it clearly will happen. Between overfishing, pollution, climate change and collecting, the ocean is declining fast.

The way things are now for this hobby, its not sustainable.