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Old 08/20/2007, 09:11 AM
BrianPlankis BrianPlankis is offline
Invertebrate Advocate
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 1,915
Quote:
Originally posted by Elliott
does anyone have an idea what percentage of livestock in our tanks are aquacultured?
The best estimate I've seen is 1-10% aquacultured for both fish and coral. I can't remember the name of the report right now, but it was from 2003. However, those numbers are based on import/export numbers and do not include fragging by local hobbyists. There is currently another large report in peer review right now that says the coral numbers are up around 15% now with the large mariculture operations producing now (Walt Smith?).

I would GUESS that fragging adds another 5-10% of aquacultured onto the corals, but there is no good way to track fragging.

Regardless of fragging, aquaculture is rising, but is still a very low percentage of the animals in our tanks. A great many of the fish and mobile invertebrates in our tanks are still 100% wild caught as we know nothing, or next to nothing, about their reproduction.

Brian
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Currently redesigning my 90 gallon tank system to support coral and invertebrate breeding. Click on my red house to see the thread with the progress.