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