Where dose it come from?

[CandyCane]

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

[yellowworld]

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.

[CandyCane]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

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

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

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by CandyCane

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

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.

[MarkoD]

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

[CandyCane]

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.

[intarsiabox]

Ah, don't feel bad, Lisa. Everybodys doing it! 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!

[MarkoD]

Originally Posted by CandyCane

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.

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?

[CandyCane]

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

[MarkoD]

Originally Posted by CandyCane

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.