Maricultured vs Aquacultured

Well I'm sitting here bored at work as usual, and I started thinking about the differences between Maricultured and Aquacultured and decided to write up an article on them... Enjoy!

First off lets start with the definitions for those who do not know them.
*Aquaculture- Is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants(corals etc). Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions. (i.e tank conditions)
*Maricultured-is a specialized branch of aquaculture involving the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other products in the open ocean, an enclosed section of the ocean, or in tanks, ponds or raceways which are filled with seawater. (Definitions taken from WIKI)

So with the definitions out of the way we can get into the different aspects of each.

*Aquaculture (as many of you know) can produce some extremely beautiful corals(LPS, SPS, Softies etc) but with more "color" comes a higher price tag. Many people like to buy this way because they have (reportedly) been take better care of. Being raised in a tank and fragged in a tank setting does have its perks though. From my experience Aquacultured corals are alittle harder to stress out(like shipping, being knocked over etc) and from what I've seen tend to have less of a chance of coming with some type of pest.(nudibranches etc)
-Also (as i stated earlier) these types of corals have a huge veriety of colors. If i got into every little morph we would be here for a LONG time. But to shorten it up, the next time you see that gorgeous rainbow colored doughnut coral, or those beautiful eagle eye zoa's remember that they werent found like that in the wild. Over time the lights we use have made them change colors. MOST(not all) colors in the wild are basic...greens, red/browns, and yellows

* Maricultured corals tend to be more of the same color(blues, greens etc) not as likely to stand out in the tank and something thats "glowing". One of the upsides to buy Maricultured corals is that you can save a pretty good ammount of money. The way the large companies do this is to have a reef lagoon where it is raised in a more natural type setting. Once they reach a specific size(1-3 inches) its then bagged up and sent out to the retailer. After it arrives at the retailer its normally put in one of their "QT" type tanks where its acclimated and watched for types of disease and pest. Some times you will still get some sort of pest that they missed(although not often).

*Whether it is Aquacultured or Maricultured, the beauty of cultured coral is that buying it preserves the inherent beauty of wild reefs while still offering us with stunning, hardy and affordable specimens for our tanks. Having said that, many species of coral can be harvested from the wild in an environmentally sustainable manner, and, when purchased from a reputable source, wild-collected coral is also a good choice for anyone that wants them.

And on a final note, im not picking sides to either one of these. I have some of both in my tank. But IMHO I believe that Aquacultured corals bring an extra special something to your tank. Because everysingle one is alittle different and a year from now there will be even more colors and morphs ready to add to your tank. Either way, whatever you decide to buy remember one thing....Its YOUR tank(bought with YOUR own money) if you like it then thats ALL that matters

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! And i hope everyone had an outstanding holiday season!! :xmas::elf::xmas::elf:

EDIT: I dont know why some letters are bold, they shouldnt be. Oh well enjoy

 

interesting post my question is the Aquaculture corals do they lose the color they tricked them to be?

 

IME they tend to keep kind-of the same color(or very close) as long as the lighting and flow are relatively the same. Take the "speckled" zoa's for instance...There are 2 types, the kind that occured naturally because of morphing and the kind that occured because of the lighting.
*This speckling is most common in Protopalyathoa type zoa's. It's caused by high intensity lighting such as certain metal halides or straight 10k powercompacts and or VHO bulbs with a lack of actinic supplementation. The color of the speckling is typically a greenish tint or white.
*The best way to tell if your lights are the reason your zoa's are speckled is to look at the NEW growing polyps. If your if they are not speckled then your lighting is the cause and you should move the zoa's if you do not desire the light induced speckling.

I hope that made sense...if not this website is a good reference and i actually paraphrased the above paragraph from them...(the ones with the *)
CoralPedia.com :: Articles :: Zoanthid morphing focusing on Lights
CoralPedia.com :: Articles :: Zoanthid morphing focusing on Speckling

 

bumpity bump

 

interesting

 

cool

 

honestly i dont really understand the whole lighting thing. i just go by what i have seen in tanks. its why i went metal halide this time instead of the t5ho's i had with the first tank.

opps sorry getting off topic. really i never knew the difference between the two coral types. i just thought it was two different company's. silly i know. but i can tell you i bought an Aquacultured xenia and it didnt do well it died. i had 4 frags of it. the wild ones are still doing great and so is the one thats a frag from anothers tank. that makes no sense but its true.

 

Well things do happen...the first time I had a frag of Xenia's they all "melted" except one...now i have to throw the new growths away...My param's were good from what i remember so there was really no cause...And yea im sure alot of people didnt know the difference, and hence i wrote the article. It helped atleast 1 person out so thats all that matters

 

very nice article! but....the most important thing is to by cultured!;D

 

Thanks, and the most important thing is actually to buy in general...I'm just kidding lol