Breeding Angels/Tangs/Butterflies/etc.

[Ashes]

What makes it so difficult or impossible to breed these fish in captivity? Is it a lack of funding for the Public Aquariums, or is it impossible with our current technology? I am quite sure that we will not be able to take from the wild forever and I think getting a head start on breeding in captivity would save the extinction of many fish, and everything else in the oceans.

We may be putting ourselves out of business so to speek. If we keep taking without giving back the world will lose some of the most beautiful animals. We could make this same argument with many of the land animals and birds of this earth as well.

I went on a tangent there, sorry. The more I learn about this hobby the more concerned I become about what we are really doing.

I think I need a pep talk on what have we done positive for the marine life we so love. This question has gone astray a bit. Thanks for any and all responses.

[CleveYank]

Well I have read articles about the tangs and it is claimed that the babies are hatched in very very deep water and that they make a journey from the middle trenches of the ocean and swim into the coasts where they are seen in their larger form. The reason is that they rely on the other massive quantities of plankton that abound in the great depths to bring them up to size as they move in towards the coasts. This also helps protect them from all the predators that abound in the shallower waters. There are some in the great depths but the shallows have the most numbers so this is like a lottery or percentage thing based on how many make it through the initial net of perdators to actually get to the coastal reefs. Apparently they are not the only shallow (2 to 100 feet) reef fish that does this. So one can safely assume that angel fish may also do this. I definatly remember reading this in one of the quarterly publications by Instant Ocean. If memory serves it's called Seascope.

With this being said. The arlticle brought out the problem of high food availabity. The extreme water pessure produced by water depth. And the solitary as in non-human part of this early part of their existance. Well those were the things they brought up. I think it is the availabity of alot of DIVERSE types of plankton sized foods is a hurdle but also feel it is definately not immpossible to meet that requirement. With lots of shipping and some substition it might be possible. Remember tangs and angelfish eat vegitation too. So they probably start out eating the micro sized algaes and plant organisms that also make up the plankton soup that exists in the ocean depths. Some that it is claimed we don't even have a full understanding of and some maybe we've never even seen. And the pressure part might be some type of triggering mechanism in their growth. If that is the case that may be an occurring natural phenominon that will be almost impossible to duplicate. I did say almost. But as far as Joe Home reefer/aquarist these may be challenges that are just too tough to meet.
It could all be Bull**** too. LOL.

[This message has been edited by CleveYank (edited 02-19-2000).]

[FOX]

I know very little about butterflies. There have been some successfull breeding attempts of mainly Centropyge angels. Flames are one. The large angels and tangs are very difficult because apparently the angels sort of spiral upwards in the water and the decompression from going higher in the water has something significant to do with successful breeding. I read some where that this may be similar in tangs also. I have recently heard that Red Sea Phish Pharms in Israel has successfully bred Asfur Angels, but I don't know for sure if this is true. There have also been some tank raise(not bred) hippo tangs available lately. Apparentley someone is collecting the larvae from the water and raising them from that point on.

FOX

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