reef responsibilty

[mps9506]

I was perusing some articles online today and realized I missed reading this article in advanced aquarist this month:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2004/media.htm

My college background is in conservation and marine bio, and now I run a store that deals with plenty of wild caught marine critters. So I took some interest in this article.
Now its been a while since I've seen any available captive reared angelfish (at least centropyge) however in my findings these guys would probably retail for over twice or even three tiems as much as wild caught specimens. What I did notice is that it seemed prices for wild caught flame angels seemed to drop when the captive reared ones hit the market.
It just seems unreasonable to me to expect most average aqaurists or aquarium keepers to pay $150 or more for a fish when it can be purchased for say $50 or so. I do agree with the concept, however I think if aquacultured fish are expected to be the saving grace for fish normally collected from the wild, that perhaps some other steps should be taken to make them more competive in price. Say limit the number of flame angels collected, imported etc. Kind of like CITES I guess.
Anyone have input on this or any other part of the article?
Mike

[Witfull]

i agree, but if CITES type limit was imposed i see prices of captive raised going higher due to supply and demand. also the captive raising is a commercial venture and they do have to try and recoup losses if not try to show a profit. its the nature of the beast. mind you i would rather see captive raised available and if it means higher prices, its a burden to bear. like everything else in this hobby its the supply,,,,remember the $200 rose bubble tips?

[mps9506]

I'm not an aquaculture expert at all, I took a few classes that allowed me to look at the feasibilty of such projects.
I know with angels larvae there is a serious issue with food sources. I believe Martin Moe ran into the same issues when raising French and Grey Angels in Florida.
There is an issue that the cost of such a project will just result in too high of a price for hte public to accept.
With clownfish you have a relatively easy food source you culture phyto and rotifers, cheap and fairly easy. With pelagic larvae like angels, tangs etc. you must go with an even smaller food source, and ensure they are nutrious enough to sustain the growth of the larvae. My assumption wold be this is neither easy or cheap. Who is going to pay for this? Apparently no one or at least not enough people will pay for it to sustain the folks that attempted the commercial project in Hawaii. If there is genuine interest in conserving wild fish, should someone step in to help out the aquacultured fish buisness? I don't know for sure, but I don't think people are willing to pay the premium price for them.

[Witfull]

moved to New frontiers forum:

[cheeks69]

BUT TO SHOW YOUR COMMITMENT BY BEING WILLING TO PAY A PREMIUM PRICE FOR THESE SPECIMENS.

The problem is most people in the hobby aren't wealthy, and just to set up a tank properly you're going to spend thousands of dollars and that's before you even add the water, unless you good at DIY.

If I'm not mistaken at the time they were selling the CB Flames they were going for $$90 and that didn't include shipping. Here's a Resplendent Pygmy Angelfish - Tank Bred for $ 899.99 !!!! Who's going to be able to afford that price ??? Not most hobbiests IMO.

Like any business venture your starting, most of the time your going to be in the red initially but if you make the prices a little more reasonable in time I believe you will profit but everyone wants to recup immediately, just doesn't work that way IMO.

[mps9506]

I agree cheeks. The replendants can actually sell for even more for wild caught, just because of where tehy guys are captured. I remember when I saw the first CB flames avaible, wholesale for them was over $100. There was no way I was going to even attempt to pass that off to my customers.

The way I see it, is you have to make the "typical" SW customer appraciate the CB fish more than wild caught. Most of my customers are more cost consious than anything else. If I sold WC clowns right next to ORA clowns, and the wild caught were 5 bucks less, then they will almost always by the wild caught.
I have very few customers that are what I would call hard core hobbiests, or environamentally consious. I therefore only stock captive raised clowns, thankfully they don't cost much more than wild caught, and I can usually convince them to spend the few extra bucks instead of driving 30 miles to the nearest store to save the money.

I also don't see MAC doing anything to raise awareness of CB marine ornamentals, or encourage the production of CB or even CR specimens. The inolvement of groups like MAC could help out a ton in the future of that industry as well.
JMHO.

[cheeks69]

CB are much more hardy and like the article you posted mentioned are also less aggressive so those are good selling points. The problem is with CB species like the loriculus, multicolor, replendant and the interruptus are just out of my league.

[mps9506]

It was brought to my attention that these breeders are concentrating on more expensive harder to get species. Apparently the cost of producing these guys (including breeding a nurtious food source small enough for the pelagic larvae) is pretty high. By concentrating on species that are hard tog et and expensive anyways they think they will make more money. Which might be true. I don't know.

[cheeks69]

By concentrating on species that are hard tog et and expensive anyways they think they will make more money

That's what I thought ! It's about the money not about ethics or conservation.

It was brought to my attention that these breeders are concentrating on more expensive harder to get species.

That may be the case with the interruptus and the replendants but the fisheri, loriculus, and multicolor are fairly common and sometimes when on sale the multicolor is actually very reasonable.

[Cougra]

Actually I'm really not sure that I would be too keen on getting a lot of captive breed fish. I have seen what happens to the fish on the freshwater side of the hobby, you get an unnatural amount of albino fish, poor captive stocks, fish that don't resemble their wild counterparts, poor health, a lot of inbreeding, batches for sale that are all from the same brood (Brothers and sisters!), and the list goes on. I've recently seen some captive bred Percula clownfish that had obvious defects (mainly small fins) that should have been culled as soon as these defects were noticed for sale and people wanting to buy them because they want their own "Nemo". IMO this sets a dangerous president for encouraging the breeding are rearing of fish that would naturally be culled in nature.

I don't look forward to the day where we can by lyre tail albino A. percula clownfish or Veiltailed Cardinalfish. It's bad enough in the freshwater side of the hobby.

Now captive REARED is a different story, I would like to see more of that.

[mps9506]

I'm actually suprised still that captive reared fish are not seen as much. The Japanese have been captive rearing tuna for a long time. Captive reared angels come out on the market once in a while, mainly large angels.

But you are correct Michelle, the market could head that direction, although I'd be suprised if it did that within the next 20 or so years. There are occasional Xanthic fish caught in the wild, I remember when there was axanthis trigger caught in the pacfic once, who knows how much that fish fetched.

I will say however, that the fish rearing condition for marine fish would probably be much different than the FW ponds you see down in Fl. Just to make it to market size marine fish have to be well taken care for. If places were run like ORA then you really wouldn't have much problem with the poor health, and hopefully no inbreeding.
They do sell misbars, but I don't know enough about clownfish genetics to know what that is caused by. I don't think a misbar is to bad though. you do occasionally get in wild misbars or "stubby" clown missing vertebrae. As long as they are not actively breeding those specimens than yeah, your good. Since those guys probably would get a chance to find a mate in the wild.

It is a which evil is worse question.
Can you imagine if every angelfish or neon tetra that has been sold in the hobby the last 30 years was caught in South America. It wouldn't look to good for the species in the wild. Same goes for many of the fish caught in the ocean. Just look at the yellow tangs in hawaii, compared to what naturally occcured there 30 years ago.
Can't even imagine what it is like in the Phillipines where most of the collecting is unregulated.
Mike

[cheeks69]

Tank-Raised Fish are wild-collected in their larval stage but raised in captivity. The obstacle to breeding these fish in captivity is they all go through a very short - but crucial - pre-larval (pelagic) stage just after hatching that is very difficult to support. Instead, these fish are collected in their more established larval stage and raised to their hardier juvenile form at an aquaculture facility. The resulting fish still share all of the benefits of being raised within captivity and are accustomed to captive life and prepared foods, making them ideal for the home aquarium

I would think this is much more difficult to do the CB wouldn't it ?

[mps9506]

Originally Posted by cheeks69

That's what I thought ! It's about the money not about ethics or conservation.

One thing I learned whenver it comes to conservation, environment etc. It ia ALWAYS about the money. You cannot get anything done without money or the prospect of money.
I've done research work for the Riverkeepers down here, worked for public aquariums, and implemeted Environmentla Management systems and ISO14000 for indusrty before and they all demnded teh same thing. Money.
Very few people will place ethics or conservation above that.

[mps9506]

Originally Posted by cheeks69

I would think this is much more difficult to do the CB wouldn't it ?

yes, Captive Bred is typically more difficult.
The ability to capture larvae limits that captive rearing process. you have to be at the right place at the right time with the right tools to capture the specific larvae you are looking for.
The Japanese mastered this with yellowtail.
You see the phillipines doing this some with certain types of angels.
And apparently since most of the juveniles die anyways in the wild, this is supposed to have much less of an impact on the wild population than collected the adult breeding aged population.

[cheeks69]

Very few people will place ethics or conservation above that.

And now we know the truth
It just irritates me when people give you the sermon about ethics but make it impossible for the common hobbiest to afford the specimens that will contribute to conservation. As I see it it's a wothwhile investment that will reap rewards in time but nobody wants to wait