Coralreefs:

[petshop johnny]

i think its sad

 

[Eelzor]

I agree

 

[ste2k3]

Have you ever visited a coral reef before? the collection of coral is heavily monitored and populations are not declining due to te aquarium trade. if you look at small coral reef islands you will see that the locals/natives actualy fish using coral. One common technique is to get a basket and cover it with coral which they snap of local reefs. they then thrash tyhe water around the area and all the scared fish shoot into the coral for cover and go strait into the basket. this method only catches a few small fish and they use about 2 square feet of reef everytime they do that. Most islands are formed by coral reefs. the local people use coral to build houses. If you lok at the causes of coral reef destruction, then you will see that the most common cause is global warming. whole reef are wiped out. There won't be many reefs left in the future if global warming continues. if you look at foristation. trees are cut down and new ones are planted and the cycle continues. the same principal applies on reefs. Aquacultured corals and frags are becoming more popular now and I agree that it is better to but frags and aquacultured corals than the ones imported because it eases the strain on the reefs and also they aclimate to aquarium conditions better.

basicaly I think that this is a extreemly contraversal topic and lots of people will disagree, but the aquarium trade only takes a small monitored percentage of coral compared with the destruction of coral by touriste locals fishing, locals building houses and roads ans global warming.

p.s

cora reefs are being destroyed all over the world for the pleasures of marine aquarist

I think that is extreem. if you ask someone who isn't activaly involved i the marine fish keeping hobby that question, then they are bound to say that it is bad and agree. you make it sound that the aquarim trade destroys coral reef and in fact, the aquarium trade is the least of the reefs worries.

 

[CJK]

We keep a marine tank too, but I have to say we only buy our corals from retailers like STM in Kent and Maidenhead Aquatics. STM frag their own corals and Maidenhead carried that certificate (can't remember the name of it ) that quarrentees their corals are not from the Ocean but come from another source.

Coming from the UK Ste2k3 I know you will be familiar with what its called

I don't like the thought of keeping any wild fish or coral, I prefer tank bred and fragged corals myself.

Sharon

 

[Landlocked]

I agree with CJK. I try not to purchase any fish that aren't tank-raised, and I usually buy corals from a reliable source, that doesn't take them from the ocean.

 

[ste2k3]

CJK- maidenhead aquatics get all there marine stock from TMC which import it from the ocean. TMC do like I said monitor stocks and make suer that the collection impact does not affect the natural numbers of corals/fish in the ocean. STM do a lot of fragging but also import corals direct and through TMC. If they are aquacultured, ten the base will be like a bubbly/round piece of live rock which is actually a manmade substance or on a milliput disc. otherwise, they will be imported from the ocean. I agree with you both that i do try and buy tank bred stock/cultured corals but if the lfs gets a big purple staghorn acro, I'm not going leave it because i will buy corals and fish from the wild. the only corals i won't buy and which the lfs don't get are illegal ones which have not been monitored to see what the collection impact is.

 

[Fuzzy]

i believe its ok to take froma coral reef area which has been destryoed by natural disasters or is dieing. some people also some how managed to be able to put back some kind of synthetic coral which works the same. some islanders take tons of coral from there island but they keep the coral eco system going the same. Chinies merchants r supposed to be the worst about getting islanders to get them coral.

 

[reefboy2002]

try raising this on

www.ultimatereef.net
or
www.reefpark.co.uk

see what input u get

there are like ste2k3 said monitored some corals got banned a couple of months ago cos the natrual stock was getting to a certain level they will now leave them to for a bit till the levels get high and then take some more
i have wild caught fish in my tank and tank raised the tank raised are by far more hardier than wild
all of my corals are aquacultured i now sell some certain corals that i frag my self to the local fish shop

also what the people with tropical and coldwater fish is there is many of things we buy to get our tanks as natural as possible

i would consider my 90 gallon system run as natrual as can be

i have 40kg of live rock 20 kgs of that is what i have made into live rock by letting the liverock i originaly bought seed it
i have a 6" deep sand bed in my sump

i do not skimm this tank so any plankton i have etc in there will not be skimmed out

i have a 15 gallon tank crammed full of calurpa (seaweed)
this helps with nutrient export and removing any nitrates in my tank

imo there is some stupid nominations in this poll so i will not be voting

such as

destroy any coral you see now come on i thought there was a point in this poll why would you wanna kill any coral we see this is pointless i thought u was trying to save corals

also we spend a lot of money on our tanks to get them to be as near to the quality as the ocean

how much would you spend on a tropical tank say for a 50 gallon tank
about 200 quid area if that

how much on a 50 gallon marine about 1500+ quid area


imo its only the same as tropical your taking them out lakes and rivers lots of fish get killed in tanks from people who just buy a fish at 1 quid and it dies next day
what do they do go out buy another 1
this carrys on happening fish stock reduce they still catch them
2 months downb the line they realise there water quality might not be right
nitrates sky high nitrites sky high
thats the killer so many fish lost there life through this

by far we can not do this inless we are rich and cheapest marine fis you will see will be about 4 quid we can not afford to loose this money also we monitor our tanks a lot we use computers suck as iks ,octopuss these tell us the redox reading ph , teperature , etc

imo if you have salt water you get feedback like this and its a insult cos they dont no some of the things we have access to

cheers ritchie

 

[reefboy2002]

so that closed the topic i take it

cheers ritchie

 

[Eelzor]

No, you just made it complicated reefboi!

 

[reefboy2002]

lol what u mean complicated

u mean ive explained every thing that needed to be
lol



cheers ritchie

merry christmas guys