Reefing hobby and the enviornment

So I couldnt find much on any reefing forums about the topic. And I am by no means a "tree hugger". I am just curious how accurate some of the things are that I have read about the saltwater aquarium fish trade and such. I have seen some things about how the hobby is depleting the natural reefs extremely quickly. And obviously I would pick a sustainable fish or coral over a wild caught one any day but they are much harder to come by. Just wonder what impact I am having on natural reefs. I love this hobby because I love and care about all the animals in the tank.

 

That is true to varying degrees. It all depends on the method of capture and removal.

 

I guess I almost feel like I am doing a bad thing after reading some of these articles, and seeing some videos.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean. Your desire to use sustainable practices suppliers is the best way to go.

 

The problem with that is there are none in my area. My clowns are SA clowns. But the rest of my fish and corals are just wild capture.

 

I think it's much less of an issue than it used to be, but certainly something we all need to take into account...many areas that used to have no regulation now have resource management plans in place to help protect over collecting. There are some corals that just don't lend themselves to be propagated, but more and corals are being "farmed". Mariculture is becoming more and more prevalent in the S. Pacific. If you're not familure with maricultre it's where corals are "fragged" and then grown out in natural lagoons. It's quite effective since they have near perfect growing conditions most of the time. Of coarse there are land based coral propagation farms in the US too...problem is a lot of people think with their pocket book, so it's hard for many US based operations to make a profit vs. what comes in from overseas.

While collection for the ornamental aquarium trade obviously has an impact, there are many other practices/industries that are far more destructive to the environment.

 

I'm not a tree hugger either, and there is nothing in my very full tank that came from the ocean!;D

As times get tough in various parts of the ocean, alternatives are found and more captive breeding is investigated. Governments and locals are realizing that what they have is unique, and if they exploit it too heavily not only will the uniqueness be gone, but the living they earned from it. Expoitation still happens, but there are more alternatives than ever.

 

For corals I buy exclusively frags, aquacultured and maricultured corals. With fish it's a little more difficult as many fish don't breed well in captivity. However, comparitively the fish trade has a low impact with the exception of certain well documented cases (e.g. yellow tangs in Hawaii).

Frankly, as it relates to corals, I fear that the aquarium trade will be the only place we'll see certain species as climate change, industrial/agricultural runoff and a host of other factors drive many corals to extinction in the wild.

 

I mean, i wouldn't feel bad or anything about it. Just because we are taking it out of the ocean and putting it in our aquariums doesn't mean were "killing the reefs" by any means. Some corals and fish do even better in a captive environment than the ocean itself. Nothin to worry about!

 

I wish captive bred fish were more readily available. So many things I would love to do in life, i've added a new thing. Would love to open a reef fish farm for captive bred fish lol! Like that will ever happen.