Minimizing Impact on Natural Reefs

[Oscar]

Someone on a previous thread was discusing "cultured" live rock as one means to minimize impacts on natural reefs.

Going beyond that technique how can one obtain and ensure that fish and corals added to your own reef are grown locally not from the wild? Obviously collecting from other reefers but what about from LFS?

[Reefer Rob]

2nd best to trading frags would be aquacultured corals. I'm not sure how much impact the aquaculture industry has on natural reefs, but I'm sure it's better than wild harvested.

[michika]

I wish we as hobbyists could do more in the way of husbandry. I know that you can get tank raised clowns, and cardinals, already. Hopefully in the near future we might start seeing a wider variety of tank raised creatures popular in the hobby.

[justinl]

ask the lfs if they sell aquacultured or not and only buy from lfs that sell aquacultured. That's one way to do it.

me, I like the trading method we got going here.

[kwirky]

I think finding alternatives to liverock would be beneficial. It's all "mostly dead" rock anyways, if you think about it. How much of the living things survive when it finally reaches our tanks? like 10%? Often the rock's left to bask in the sun on the beach until the locals gather it all up at the end of the day.

Public aquariums usually used the fossilized coral dug up in ontario. No impact on the reefs, and much cheaper.

As hobbyists, we could try to buy used rock whenever possible, even though it's hard to find, and cook it if needed.

Also, if the collection and shipping techniques were improved vastly, where the rock collected is 90% alive instead of 10% alive when it hits our tanks, we could buy much less of it, and instead seed various forms of base rock with the real "live" rock.

Plus only keeping fraggable coral colonies and trying to buy captive raised corals helps the reef. Look at ellegance coral. It's very hard to keep now because all the easily kept ones have been collected, and now the industry's collecting it from regions of the ocean that it has a hard time surviving outside of. They catch diseases at the holding facilities from all the corals they've never had contact with and consequently often have a very short lifespan.

The funny thing is, the media often cries "they're collecting all the little fishies, the cute doras and nemos are going to dissapear!" I think our gravest impact is on the invertibrate life that's collected for our tanks and the liverock, which acts as the base for life in the ocean.

Let's face it. Even though it's such an enriching hobby, we are a lot more wasteful and have a deeper impact on the world as a whole than somone who simply collects stamps

[justinl]

but stamps don't swim. lol.

but seriously, I do believe there are ways to make this hobby a zero impact industry.

For example Live rock does not necesarily need to be collected from reefs or even as dead corals. I posted elsewhere about GARF's method of making their own LR by using a mix of concrete and aragonite. the shapes they made by hand were stunning and would be impossible in nature. This method is a win win win one and I highly support it. Just wish it were more available. One day I plan to make it myself and cure it in a big tank at home. then sell it!

I agree kwirky, the corals we choose to keep must be considered very carefully. There are many things (corals, fish, inverts, etc) that i disagree with our keeping. These things I would never keep myself.