Saltwater Hobby Threat

[ddiomede]

Originally Posted by FisheriesOmen

LEDs = No chillers = no probelm

The reefing hobby has changed dramatically since the 90s.


ddiomede, I completely agree with you. There are a lot worse things out there and this hobby isn't one of them. I can safely say that the majority of corals people buy (all of them in my case) are frags of other aqua-cultured corals.

Same here. I just got back into the marine hobby after years of keeping freshwater. I stopped back in the 90's because the technology IMO wasn't good enough to maintain these animals. Now since it's come a long way I figured I would get back in.

I am a member of a local reef keeping forum and nearly everyone on there trades and sells frags to one another. Most shops also only sell frags because people are gravitating towards aquaculture.

So with more and more folks looking towards sustainability, there is less impact on the reefs. As more and more people understand the husbandry of these animals, we can further limit wild collection. There will always be new corals that people will want in their collections, but once they're collected, people soon begin to aquaculture them so less need for wild stock.

Fish on the other hand is a different matter altogether. Many of the species cannot be bred in aquariums.

In short, it's up to us hobbyists to set the bar. When we go into pet shops and buy something that we have never seen before and don't know how to keep it is when we've failed the environment, as well as the hobby.

[bikinibottom]

For those panicked about the end of the aquarium hobby -- ha. Whatever. It's never going to happen so you can stop the hand-wringing. What Snorkel Bob is doing is suing the state in an attempt to force them to conduct environmental impact assessments on extractions for the aquarium trade. He's not saying that anyone who keeps a tank should go to jail.

Personally, I would like more science-based facts about what the impact is. If we don't know, then how can we take a stance on whether ecosystems need more or less protection?

[Axelrodi202]

While there are certainly unscrupulous practices going on in the marine hobby, I find that the trend is going towards sustainability. For example, one of the major LFS in my area is MAC-certified, and their lionfish are caught off of the Atlantic coast.

[dprais1]

Even if the impact is so close to "zero" that it is not measurable, it is still in no way acceptable that for every fish in a tank at the pet store there are 9 others that died.

When does the love of the hobby start to eclipse the love of the subject?

Take fish out of the wild? You bet! but responsibly and then the goal should be breed them in captivity.

my $.02

[FisheriesOmen]

Originally Posted by dprais1

Even if the impact is so close to "zero" that it is not measurable, it is still in no way acceptable that for every fish in a tank at the pet store there are 9 others that died.

When does the love of the hobby start to eclipse the love of the subject?

Take fish out of the wild? You bet! but responsibly and then the goal should be breed them in captivity.

my $.02

The thing is that there are captive breeding efforts in the marine hobby. It takes a lot more effort to raise Marine Fish (especially ones that have pelagic larvae stages) and people have recently been cracking very tough fish. Most people that don't have enough knowledge to keep a SW tank normally go with Clownfish anyways, which are breed extensively in the U.S.

Show me sufficient evidence of extensive use of harmful methods of collection. Even live-rock is being man-made and aqua-cultured.

[SMB]

[QUOTE]I feel weird for saying this, but I agree with them... The saltwater hobby as a whole is detrimental to the marine environment. Not only does it damage populations of certain species, it also is very damaging to the ecosystem as a whole with the introduction of invasive organisms such as the lionfish in the Caribbean. Personally, I would be very hesitant about getting anything for a saltwater tank that was not possible to breed in a domestic environment.
__________________/QUOTE]__________________

The fresh water keepers are not free of guilt when it comes to invasive species:
Snake Heads, Blue Catfish, etc.
The saltwater hobby is by no means perfect, but private aquarium owners have done a great deal in advancing the husbandry of marine fish and corals. In fact they put many public aquariums to shame. There is a compromise position, by keeping tank raised fish and identifying those wild caught species that do well in captivity, banning the sale of those fish that clearly have low survival rates in captivity.
It is the frag. coral industry that has made new steps in restoring some depleted reefs. As with fresh water aquariums we all have to be responsible for our systems. (I do not have a SW tank.)