After a Southeast Asia trip with loads of snorkelling and diving it's really made me think about my previous purchasing decisions for my reef tanks.
I'm still going to keep reefing, and I'll keep everything I currently own, but I'm going strict captive bred fish only and aquaculture corals for as many as possible.
Too many low fish population reefs in poor condition. Not to say this is everywhere and always but it's enough to make me want to change my practices. Any other reefers follow a strict captive bred and aquacultured only?
It's not only ethical, but captive breeding has made fish that should be left in the ocean much more adaptable to our tanks and successful in captivity, i.e. mandarins, cleaner wrasses, potters angels. Holy grail species like Conspicuous angels, golden basslets, tiger angels, etc are more accessible too.
Yeah, I have a 60 gallon cube of only Biota fish. Honestly though I did it in large part to avoid adding diseases. An aquaculture facility seems likely to have better bio-security than normal fish stores.
Biota and ORA now have so many fish species available that it really isn't that restrictive, although prices are sometimes a bit out of control.
I would love to have LFS to label their stock with a captive bred sticker if available. I would definitely pay a premium for them. I have a firefish and a tailspot blenny of unknown origin, and I regret not searching harder for captive bred specimens.
I see this pretty regularly at some LFS, but honestly if they go to a store they have been exposed to a lot of diseases. I prefer to just order online.
Not an expert on the exact definitions. One example I understand a bit about is Salmon farming in British Columbia with Atlantic Salmon and other salmon being farmed in the Pacific ocean. A host of harmful parasites and other pathogens then move to wild Salmon from the farmed fish.
I've never read anything harmful from aquaculturing or mariculture for the salt water hobby/industry.
So for corals mariculture is essentially growing corals on racks in the wild. I would say that it probably does use some habitat away from other species such as sea grass if grown over sand.
Welcome to the club! I’ve been only doing exclusively captive bred for a couple of years. Do I wish the selection were larger? Yes! But I feel good about it anyways.
Same. Once you've seen them in the wild it really puts a different perspective on things. I only got back into the hobby after seeing that they started breeding tangs and angels. I have a biota yellow tang that's coming to around 8 years. Had a coral beauty that I bought with it that unfortunately died in a tank crash earlier this year.
There are so many reasons to not buy wild caught fish from southeast Asia so I am glad you were able to gain this perspective!
Historically many reefers like to point to massive industrial fisheries, especially those with European or Chinese super trawlers, and say “see? they do way more damage than us”, and while they DO inflict tons of damage to the ocean, the smaller reef aquarium trade targets the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth. These ecosystems harbor 25% of marine species and cover less than 1% of the sea floor. Damage to tropical reef ecosystems is disproportionately impactful to marine biodiversity even when compared to industries many times its size (again, not to say we shouldn’t also be fighting against industrial fisheries). But that’s just the tip of the iceburg really, there is a significant carbon cost to flying live marine animals across the world constantly just so 90%+ of them can die either on the way or by the 1 year mark in someone’s tank, though lucrative this is absolutely contributing to climate change, the number one threat to the future of coral reef ecosystems. There are significant impacts on reef structure and coral health because of aquarium extraction. There is blatant poaching and criminal activity that occurs throughout the supply chain. and there are countless severely underpaid laborers who risk their lives to collect our fish every day, many of which die in transit, and honestly I could go on.
I think we have a responsibility as ambassadors of reefs to our friends and families and as people who appreciate the life they create, to speak out and act in favor of their future on earth. I think aquaculture is really the only way forward if we expect to continue to consume marine wildlife at such a rate, if the habitats collapse globally, as they already have in many parts of the world and are projected to continue to, then we have to respect and cherish these captive lineages so they can be carried into the future and not lost to time.
I would always choose captive bred over wild caught if there is an option. You might be paying more but the benefits are worth it. On top of it being more ethical, captive bred fish are way more adaptable to an aquarium and will be more disease free. They tend to “do better” than their wild caught counterparts.
I always try to do the same, most of the time you pay half more than a wild caught fish. My Banggai cardinals, Stonogobiops nematodes, and mandarin dragonet are all captive bred. Only my pink streaked wrasse is wild caught, afaik they have not been bred yet.
18
u/slyseekr 21h ago
It's not only ethical, but captive breeding has made fish that should be left in the ocean much more adaptable to our tanks and successful in captivity, i.e. mandarins, cleaner wrasses, potters angels. Holy grail species like Conspicuous angels, golden basslets, tiger angels, etc are more accessible too.