A list of fish I need. Which ones are captive bred or.....

[j_mazzy]

A list of fish I need. Which ones are captive bred or who has one that they are willing to part with so I do not contribute to taking another one off the reef.

Angels:

Flame
Venustus
Coral Beauty
Lemon Peel
Bicolor

Tangs:
Achilles
Blue hippo
Cheveron
Powder blue
Purple
Yellow

Wrass/Misc:
Filamented Flasher
Kauderns cardinal
Mandarin Gobie
Heniochus
Yellow long nose

Thank you all

[j_mazzy]

bump

[loosbrew]

you can start here...

http://inlandaquatics.com/

and maybe find somthing you like here...

http://www.rcthawaii.com/purchase/1.htm

hth...

lue.

[egdevilboy]

http://www.liveaquaria.com/ is a good place and will tell you if they have captive bred or where the fish was caught.

Most of those arent captive bred too often.

most captive bred are clowns, dottybacks and gobys, and a few tang (maybe some yellow)

The good thing about captive bred is they can teach other fish how to behave and will eat from your hand. Plus they usually do better in an aquarium

[Fishfirst]

tangs have been captive bred, but the fry usually don't survive. cardinalfish are also captive bred.

[cortez marine]

j-mazzy,
I think you have just made a good case for sustainable collecting of fish from the wild.
Its sad to see that many good people think that captive bred fish are an option in keeping much beyond a very few categories of fish. After clowns, some gobies and blennies, we're already done with 95% of the variety available.
Heres your scorecard;

Angels:
AVAILABLE?
Flame. no
Venustus no
Coral Beauty no
Lemon Peel no
Bicolor no

Tangs:
Achilles no
Blue hippo no
Cheveron no
Powder blue no
Purple no
Yellow no

Wrass/Misc:
Filamented Flasher no
Kauderns cardinal possible to find some
Mandarin Gobie no
Heniochus no
Yellow long nose no

The hobby as we know it depends on wildcaught fishes from fisherman who need the work.
Captive bred fishes are from businesses run by people not nearly so desperate. Thanks to the way nature works, your list will not be available anytime soon. Although flame angels are bred by highly skilled folks, they are hardly available to you and if they would be, they would be nothing in the value range you have ever seen.
GOD GIVEN CORAL REEFS GIVE FISHERMAN INCOME.
They provide an endless supply provided that sustainable methods are used to collect the fishes.
You would do far more for the environment to engage the issue of wildcaught and support the good guys using only nets to collect.
Supporting a very small industry in captive bred fishes leaves the real coral reefs with less reasons for protection. Its like giving up on the wild and retreating to the laboratory. It will not save the wild and may hasten its demise.
Supporting wildcaught gives value to the reefs and food on the table for lots of people....who would otherwise resort to food fishing, turtle killing, smuggling, spearfishing, dynamite fishing etc. etc.
Tropicals recover their numbers quickly and breed abundantly if coral habitat is left intact. This is where the cool fish come from...the real reef.
Support netcaught fishes and help the reefs in that way!
Steve

[hgbarwick]

does any one know where i can get a captive shark nose goby

[NicoleC]

I'm not against sustainable wild collection, but, alas, MANY of the collection practices are NOT sustainable, and the buyer has no way of telling which fish were collected sustainably and which were not.

Personally, I'd rather see those collectors be retrained as aqua-farmers. It works for coral; it will work for fish.

It's good income for them, it's safer than wild collecting, it's more open to people with disabilities who may not be up to the physical challenges of collecting, it's good work that offers advancement for people with apititude who may want to go into biology or other sciences, and it's less culturally-charged -- so even in cultures with strong gender roles, women who are widows or who have husbands and fathers unable to work may be able to find good work to feed their kids, too.

And in areas where the ecosystem has already been damaged by poor collection pratices, industrial runoff, excessive tourism, etc., aqua-culture can *increase* their income while taking the pressure off the local reef -- allowing it to bounce back.

Of course, in the meantime, if you want healthy, disease-free fish who are hand tamed and acclimated to captivity, support your local breeder.

P.S. Mandarin gobies are available captive bred, but you will probbaly need to find a small breeder. They are not available in sufficient numbers to support large retailers. Cardinals are also usually available from small breeders -- since they have small broods, they are not cost-effective for large scale breeders.

[NicoleC]

Sorry, double post.

[GreshamH]

Steve is talking about commercially available, and he's right.

Aquaculture/mariculture requires a decent amount of start up cash, know anyone who wants to retrain 7K - 10K of the worlds collectors? Many of these villages that collect have no place to do this, what about them? They're also always going to fish for themselves, which in itself can be far more damaging to the reef. It's not as easy as saying "they can all become aqua-farmers".

It also doesn't exactly work for coral. Coral farms require a substantial start up cost as well. I've been working with one in Bali, and belive me, it's a whole different world then you'd think. With CITES permits gobbled up by the big guys and deep wallats, co-op based farms are having a hard time finding the money to even ship their goods.

How much have you spent of figuring out breeding fish Nicole? Gonna make any money in the near future on it, or brake even?

[mwp]

No mention of "Captive Raised" yet? You'll see maculosus angels time and again, and Inland Aquatics has a number of fish that are not "Tank Raised / Captive Bred" but ARE harvested when larvae/very young (when most of them do not survive) and ultimately raised up before being sold. It's a great "next step" towards eliminating collecting pressures on adult, breeding size fish in the wild. Afterall, harvest 1 show size Queen Angel theoretically should be much more detrimental than harvest a bunch of larvae and raising them up for sale.

MP

[NicoleC]

>How much have you spent of figuring out breeding fish Nicole? Gonna make any money in the near future on it, or brake even?

Heck, no. But if I were in the tropics, I wouldn't be spending a small fortune on salt mix and electricity to heat the water, which is where about 90% of my costs go. Well, that and FedEx charges from Reed. I would be making money then. If I stuck to an easy species like clowns I'd be making money. But MAYBE I might learn and share enough that someday my pet white elephant project will be one of those easy, commercially viable species.

There are already aqua-farming projects for fish in the works. It isn't something I just concocted from nothing. But as with the efforts to retrain collectors to use nets, it will be a long, slow process -- one village and one farm and one species at a time.

In the long run I think it will be better for the locals. As more and more species are prohibitted from wild collection, aqua-farms will be able to step in as a source of steady income. It's far more cost-effective and viable to put aqua-farms near the species' natural habitat than it is to create complex life-support systems in garages halfway around the world.

Economically, it's the difference between an island having a single natural resource to sell and having an industry they can grow. In the early 1900's, many of these same islands were stripped of whatever natural resource they had that the industrialized world wanted -- when the resource ran out, the villagers were abandoned to what was left of their damaged island. If the reefs are destroyed and their local fish are on a prohibitted list, guess what's gonna happen... again? Whups, but their local seafood sources are ALSO going to be in decline. Too bad for the islanders.

As I said, I don't object to sustainable wild collection. What I object to is the total crap of saying that fish breeders are destroying the reefs! Importers feel free to sneer at breeders (and I've seen plenty of it on that "other" site) while utterly failing to acknowledge that home breeders contribute a huge body of scientific information to what is known about ornamental species -- information which would not otherwise be available. Scientists don't get research grants for these animals; they are busy studying fish we eat or medical uses of algae or other critical issues.

And should those same species be collected or their habitat damaged to the brink of extinction, the information to save the species and help them bounce back to the point where they can be sustainably collected again isn't going to come from importers, now is it?

[jnowell]

Well said Nicole!

I guess since I am raising seahorses, I must be helping to destroy the seagrass beds too huh?

Jason

[onereefnotenuf]

Originally posted by NicoleC
[B

Economically, it's the difference between an island having a single natural resource to sell and having an industry they can grow. In the early 1900's, many of these same islands were stripped of whatever natural resource they had that the industrialized world wanted -- when the resource ran out, the villagers were abandoned to what was left of their damaged island. If the reefs are destroyed and their local fish are on a prohibitted list, guess what's gonna happen... again? Whups, but their local seafood sources are ALSO going to be in decline. Too bad for the islanders.

As I said, I don't object to sustainable wild collection. What I object to is the total crap of saying that fish breeders are destroying the reefs! Importers feel free to sneer at breeders (and I've seen plenty of it on that "other" site) while utterly failing to acknowledge that home breeders contribute a huge body of scientific information to what is known about ornamental species -- information which would not otherwise be available. Scientists don't get research grants for these animals; they are busy studying fish we eat or medical uses of algae or other critical issues.

And should those same species be collected or their habitat damaged to the brink of extinction, the information to save the species and help them bounce back to the point where they can be sustainably collected again isn't going to come from importers, now is it? [/B]

I've said this before and I will say it again, If the reef is no longer valuable as a renewable resource for fish/coral/LR it will be used for asphalt and septic system start up material(the live rock and rubble) and of course a food source on the island it comes from. If collection is prohibited those Fisherman who by the way have no capital to start a fish farm will switch from nets to crow bars to harvest rock and the real destruction will begin. Of course something like that wouldn't happen in the states, where we have decent enforcement but it will happen in those Countries where feeding a family is dependant on what comes out of the sea. The other issue is a well run fish farm requires few workers compared to the number of fisherman whose livelihood depends on their catch. The truth is if and when marine fish are captive bred, it will be done most likely in places like Florida where the shipping costs will be greatly reduced and the technology exists to do it profitably close to the customers. Two or three people can run a good size fish farm that could produce the equivalent fish of dozens of fisherman. It isn't "total crap".One question about the Aqua farming projects you mentioned. where are they located? Hawaii? Florida? Even if they are in the Philippines I am sure they are bankrolled by big business and not individual fisherman.who will be left to fend for themselves. If you don't believe me, Cortez marine will confirm this. He has spent more time with collectors than anybody I know.

[MCary]

I would look to proper environmental collection techniques and proper management rather than just assume that captive breeding programs are better options for the long term health of our hobby.

The numbers of alot of wild things has much more to do with their environment than actual numbers. There are exceptions of course. Let me give you a couple examples. Lobster stocks are at an all time high. The reason, surprisingly enough, researcher think its due mostly to lobster fishing. Lobster are canabalistic. By impossing a limit on the size of the lobsters, larger lobsters are taken from the system and this allows smaller lobsters to grow and thrive and become large lobsters. The glut has lowered the price of lobster to a point where fishermen are leaving the business.

Second, a clownfish is never found in the wild without an anemone. yet they lay hundreds of eggs. Conclusion, those clownfish that are not able to find an anemone do not survive. So if you took every clown fish you could find from the anemones, in a year or so when the larval clownfish matured the populations would spring back. But it you took the anemones you could wipe out the clownfish.

So rather than worry if a fish was taken from the wild, I would be more concerned over how it was taken from the wild. Did I make any sense?

Mike

[jnowell]

Everone on this thread is making sense...some more than others. The thought that a small island fisherman will destroy a reef for his septic system if he can't capture marine ornamentals is a little absurd sounding to me.

On another note, I am an avid diver, and have been for over ten years. Ask ANY diver with the same length of time in the hobby and EVERY one of them will tell you the same thing! There simply isn't as much wildlife on the reefs as their used to be, it is smaller, and fewer, and farther between...that's a FACT that I've seen with my own two eyes, several times in the last year, it's simply not debatable.

The first time I went to Cozumel, I saw 6 pairs of seahorses, 3 clown/anenome pairs, and 5 groupers big enough to swallow me in one bite. Last year I saw no seahorses, the biggest grouper was maybe 2 feet, and I couldn't find a clown or anenome to save my life.

You can talk, quote numbers and figures until we are all dead, but I've seen it brother, and it's not the same down there on the real reef. Cozumel, Belize, Florida, Texas, Bahamas, Caymen, etc. all have visible signs. In Fiji the reef is actually receding from the live rock trade. That stuff takes hundreds and thousands of years to build up, if you think we are not selling it faster than it is growing, you need to look at your numbers again (and I'm not just talking about rocks).

Truk Lagoon is the ONE place in the world I've seen that still has the abundance of wildlife as the first time I saw it...it is of course, completely protected from wild collection and a lot of fishing.

Jason

[NicoleC]

We're all in this together, guys. The status quo is not working and no one thing is going to fix it. That means protected areas, sustainable, safe and humane collection practices, scientifically based quotas, improved environmental protection (agricultural runoff, irresponsible tourism, etc.), better transportation and shipping methods, hobbiest education, and so much more.

AND more sources of livestock, including captive bred fish and cultivated corals.

[Nagel]

Originally posted by jnowell
The first time I went to Cozumel, I saw 6 pairs of seahorses, 3 clown/anenome pairs, and 5 groupers big enough to swallow me in one bite. Last year I saw no seahorses, the biggest grouper was maybe 2 feet, and I couldn't find a clown or anenome to save my life.

You do know that Clownfish are NOT indigenous to the Carribbean, right? If you saw three clown / anemone pairs, it was because someone local released them..

When I worked in a LFS, I saw Flame angels that were captive bred, and available at decent prices. Granted, not as cheap as wild caught, but they are not outrageously priced.

I think some fish are better left to mother nature to raise, and some are very easily done by people. This can provide a balance. If the islanders focus on responsible collection of the fish that are tough / impossible to breed (Tangs, Angels, Wrasses), and the breeders focus on the simple things like Clowns, Gobies and Cardinals, overall the hobby would be better if you ask me. I received my share of tran-shipped goods while at the LFS (we were big enough to tran-ship 25+ boxes a week in our prime), and I know that corals do well (with the exception of SPS) and fish are a full 50/50. A simple estimate is that it takes 10 WC Clowns to make one reach a home aquarium alive. So much losses in shipping, even when everything is done right. And lets not forget human error (25 boxes that were supposed to just jump planes in LA and then fly to NJ were accidentally sent to Portland, OR where they sat on a cold shipping dock overnight killing everything)..

Fish breeders are often the people letting the scientists know things from their observations. Most people think its the other way around, but really, scientists have no major incentive to figure out the spawning cycles of marine ornamentals, the incubation times, the temps, the foods, etc.. Ornamentals have little to give scientists for the most part, and are not heavily studied. I must say, I have learned more from my fellow hobbyists and the extreme breeders (C-Quest, ORA, etc) than I have from any scientific sources regarding breeding them.

And think about this.. During the "Nemo Craze", the LFS I worked in was bringing in BOXES from ORA each week. No joke, we would sell 300 ocellaris a week, AND they went to "responsible owners", people who would plunk down $300 - $500 to setup a basic 20 or 30g FOWLR so they could keep them properly. Multiply that number by even 10% of the LFS's in the US, and the numbers are astronomical. And lets not forget all of the "less than honorable" fish stores that don't care where that clown goes, and continues to sell fish after fish to a newbie who keeps killing them. That would not be sustainable harvesting in the wild if you ask me.

Some fish should be bred, and other fish will soon be bred. Just think, it wasn't long ago that your typical SW tank was stark bleached coral skeletons, and just 10 years ago, SPS was almost impossible to keep. Hobbyists and the internet have brought this hobby a LONG way in a very short time.

I'll still breed my fish regardless. It's been a LONG time since I've even heard of wild-caught black ocellaris (sharks and crocs keep collectors away).

There is a balance to be struck between wild caught and captive bred. Unfortunately, its difficult to educate the masses of collectors spread out over thousands of islands, and CITES itself is trivial at best considering most fish and game people inspecting it on arrival couldn't tell an acanthastrea from a favia. Heck, we all know plenty of SPS corals cannot even be identified by an expert until it is killed and the skeleton is inspected under a microscope, and yet we expect the under-educated Fish and Game / Conservation officers to enforce laws on animals they couldn't identify!

I doubt that captive breeding will ever hurt the livelihood of the island nations. The demand is still far greater than the supply (have any of you noticed that close to the end of the year, Nov / Dec that some corals are impossible to find? Euphyllias were notable here, hammers, torches and frogspawns were almost impossible to find because the CITES quotas had been filled and none were being shipped out of the islands, yet in January when the numbers were reset, everything was always available again.. If thats the case, then captively fragging and raising them would not hurt the island nations if you ask me.

Finally, some fish will never be captive bred in a garage, basement or even aquaculture facility. The mating rituals of some fish require great depths for them to rise and do a courting ritual, something that we can't even begin to duplicate, so there is no worries that captive breeding will ever completely wipe out the demand for wild caughts.

[sabalough]

hey lets all only eat natural wildgrown hand harvested wheat, corn, rice and tomatos. and wild game. after all farms are puting all those hunter/gatherers out of business.

It is the evolution of an industry and a simple supply and demand thing. if this hobby is to keep growing, a decent selection of fish must be mas-produced at a location close to the demand. these mas-produced fish will be the bulk of what the average hobiest will keep. The other species will be left, only avaliable as wild caught for the more advanced/seasoned aquarests. the same goes for corals.

thus new hobiests can "learn" at the expense of captive raised "zero inpact" fish and corals. they will have a beter expeience actualy stay in the hobby. and then take on the chalanges of wild harvested fish.
my $0.02

[onereefnotenuf]

Originally posted by jnowell
Everyone on this thread is making sense...some more than others. The thought that a small island fisherman will destroy a reef for his septic system if he can't capture marine ornamentals is a little absurd sounding to me.



Jason

the article where I read that is about a year or so old and I haven't been able to find it. the amount of rock used in the septic systems is small in comparison to the rock crushed up for asphalt.
the collection techniques are very destructive. much more so than the aquarium trade.
part of the point I was trying to make was that the poster who brought up the idea that fish farms will give the soon to be out of work fisherman a new livelihood is I believe wrong. farms won't be owned by the local fisherman and the relatively few people it takes to run one will put a large number of fisherman out of work needing something else to do.that something else is what I believe will be more destructive to the reefs than fishing is.

[onereefnotenuf]

Originally posted by sabalough
hey lets all only eat natural wildgrown hand harvested wheat, corn, rice and tomatos. and wild game. after all farms are puting all those hunter/gatherers out of business.

my $0.02

I am all for progress that isn't the point I am trying to make. The problem I believe is those out of business fisherman will still take their livelihood from the ocean. they will just change what they take. The new recourses they take will cause more destruction to the reef than the fish/corals/LR that they take now imo.

[jnowell]

I wonder if RC has an award for hijacked thread of the year?

I'm much more concerned with the coral/live rock trade than the fish trade because of the time factor. I do believe fish populations are shrinking, but they are sustained for the most part, and can rebound quickly if given the chance.

Reef habitats however, will never be able to keep up. I really think we as a community should be supporting things like reeferrocks.com, hirocks.com, and Tampa Bay Saltwater. The dry, calcium carbonate rock available is beautiful stuff, bad hitchiker free, and looks the same after about 2-3 months.

If we protect the habitat the fish populations will probably be OK. Here's my last order from Reefer Rocks. 400 lbs. for just over $700, cheap, free of nasties, and not chipped off a reef somewhere...A cup of sand from the sump is all that is needed to start the whole lot on it's way to becoming beautiful live rock.



(BTW, it was 10 years ago, so I could be wrong on the location of the dive with clownfish, but I really don't think so. Could have been Puerto Vallarta too maybe, those were the first two places I went diving, followed by French Polynesia).

[onereefnotenuf]

spell check spelled resources wrong not me!

[jnowell]

Likely Story

[cortez marine]

The problem I believe is those out of business fisherman will still take their livelihood from the ocean. they will just change what they take. The new recourses they take will cause more destruction to the reef than the fish/corals/LR that they take now imo.

BINGO!

THEY ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT SIT DOWN AND STRAVE QUIETLY.
They will kill turtles, grouper, lobster, parrotfish, snapper, manta rays and sharks....
they will turn over the reefs to hunt for seashells, smuggle, poach and spearfish...they will do anything to survive in the arena they understand which is the ocean.
Now...
Tropical fish net collecting has been banned in the mid Sea of Cortez area in Mexico for three years now.
AND...
The catch totals of food fish are available for those three years....kept by the seafood buyers invoices.
I hope to collate the data and see how many tons of slow growing FINFISH, SHARKS AND SEAFOOD has been taken in lieu of the fast growing starfish, hermits, wrasses, puffers, gobies and blennies that these guys used to catch.
I think the disparity in biomass extracted will prove to be alarming and should help the stateside population of eco-thinkers understand things better in the third world.
Banning tropicals may will condemn far greater resources then anyone knows.
Sincerely, Steve