[Anemone]

Originally posted by Jared Cooper
Many corals live for a very long time and provide homes for a lot of animals in much the same way anemones do. Corals are the building block of coral reefs, yet we take them and they do die, often. In fact anemonies grow faster and reproduce mush faster than the SPS corals. Cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasses provide very important services and yet they are collected. When you take a fish from the ocean you are taking an animal that could have reproduced or supplied food for another animal, so in a sense you are breaking down the food chain in that ecosystem.

Actually, I disagree with you here. You're comparing apples and oranges. While removing whole corals, frags, cleaner chrimps and wrasses certainly has some effect on the ecosystem, a coral that is fragged leaves something behind, while an collected anemone doeasn't. Further, in none of the above cases are you removing the only habitat for a reef inhabitant, as you are with anemones.

As an example, remove a clownfish (or a few) from a group living in the wild in an anemone, and if you happen to remove the male or female (as versus a juvenile), and there may be a slight delay in continuing reproductive efforts. However, if you remove the anemone, all the clowns will die, and there will be no further wild reproductive efforts from this anemone and associated clowns.

So if you own anything from the ocean how can anyone justify thier attack on those who keep anemonies?

I do not justify anyone's attack on a person who keeps anemones, and neither was I attacking anyone (I have 8 anemones in my home tank). I do, however, take strong exception to an industry that sells whatever people will buy, without making any attempt to ensure that the person has at least a slight chance of success.

Also, anemone, were do you get your statisic that 90%+ anemonies die. If is from this internet survey http://trickstr.tripod.com/survey_r.htm this survey is not a true representation of the truth and shouldn't be stated as fact which people oten are doing. While it is a noble effort, statistically it is full of bias and problems that make it a very poor survey and not something to be quoted as fact. If you asked a statistics professor I'm positive they would agree.

I also agree that a statistics professor would feel that the cited survey is flawed - surveys usually are. However, my experience with people in the wholesale and retail business in Los Angeles, as well as with hobbysists throughout the United States convinces me that Joyce's survey under-reports the actual rate of loss of collected anemones.

Just my opinion,

Kevin