FiSh123FiSh
Fishaholic
Prologue:
We all know that the majority of reefs in the world are under threat from human activities, e.g. pollution, tourism, jewellery and the illegal trade of endangered species. These factors have had a massive affect on the reefs around the world. The most recent large scale pollution of a marine habitat is the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been across papers and news headlines for definate across the UK and has affected people's lives who live near the coast (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida) For some people the Gulf is were they earn there living: fishing to hotel owners. Other than fish and inverts there are turtles and the Marine mammals, including the critically endangered West Indian manateesa and the other less endangered but threatened nevertheless: bottlenose dolphins, sperm whales, and blue whales.
I work in Waitrose, ironically on the meat and fish service counter. There has been a signifficant decrease of the amount of yellow fin tuna we have had in. I suspect that this may have partly been becuase of the spill. Although Tuna inhabitats a large area of the world.
Another large impact on the reefs comes from the aquarium trade (unfortuantly) the main culprets: USA and followed by the UK.
The impacts of the aquarium trade:
Fish
A total of 103 species of fish are collected for the aquarium fish trade; 90% of the harvest is focused only on seven species including Yellow Tang, Kole, Achilles Tang, Orangespine Unicornfish, Longnose Butterflyfish, and Moorish Idols.
80% of the catch of marine ornamentals are herbivorous fish. A reduction in the abundance of herbivores can cause algal overgrowth of coral, creating long-term impacts on coral reef health.
Live rock
Fijian is the best rock to buy if your after the 'wild stuff' as locals have found a sustainable way to harvest live rock: They collect plain old dry porus rock normally from land. This rock is very porus and comes in 'dounut' shapes which is practical for use. What they do is anchor the rock to the bed with chain or rope through the holes of the dounut shaped rocks to the sea bed and wait just 8 months for the rock to become inhabited by bacteria and algae (the good type, they take off any nusience algae) it is then shipped off to us. Where it is then cured in more local locations.
However by far the most sustainable way to obtain live rock is from someone breaking down there already established tank.
I will get onto corals a bit later on.
Aquacultured marine fish
Marine fish that have been tank bred has made a big step in the marine conservation world
The more popular and easier to breed specimens such as clownfish and cardinalfish are some of the most readily availiable fish on the market. The pros to tank bred fish are that they are hardier, do a lot better than the wild caught, less prone to disease and generally do a lot better on the whole. They have the same characteristics as the wild ones so you wouldn't know if they were wild or not. Or would you?.. Many aquatic shops sell wild caught specimens as tank bred (TB) to try and gain status. However most are good and if selling TB or wild caught (WC) will state exactly if they are or are not.
Image courtesy of Richard Seaman - http
/www.richard-seaman.com/
I have put the white box on to resemble a Juwel Rio 125. Very rough thought measurements done by taking the length of the wrasse in the picture.
But you can tell that that tank is tiny compared to the fish is used to if WC. I hope you can make out sort of what I'm getting at.
BUT
What people on this section of the forum are doing is great. We (except me at this moment) are keeping captive bred fish. This is also good as we can learn from our experiences and if anything happens such as managing to breed a fish this is a break through. As when it happens you can state exactly what the conditions of your tank were and what was in there. How they spawned etc. This can be replicated in labs and it may allow people to breed these fish and it then means that no more WC specimens of that fish won't need to be taken from the wild.
Oh and all this is also in aid of my AS level Coursework for Environmental science as its my chosen topic. So I'm setting up my tank to give evidence. Great excuse IMO
As my teacher is against marine aquariums I will prove her that it can be done 'sustainably' or as close as I can get it
Sorry for the essay but hey it keeps me from causing mischief
We all know that the majority of reefs in the world are under threat from human activities, e.g. pollution, tourism, jewellery and the illegal trade of endangered species. These factors have had a massive affect on the reefs around the world. The most recent large scale pollution of a marine habitat is the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been across papers and news headlines for definate across the UK and has affected people's lives who live near the coast (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida) For some people the Gulf is were they earn there living: fishing to hotel owners. Other than fish and inverts there are turtles and the Marine mammals, including the critically endangered West Indian manateesa and the other less endangered but threatened nevertheless: bottlenose dolphins, sperm whales, and blue whales.
I work in Waitrose, ironically on the meat and fish service counter. There has been a signifficant decrease of the amount of yellow fin tuna we have had in. I suspect that this may have partly been becuase of the spill. Although Tuna inhabitats a large area of the world.
Another large impact on the reefs comes from the aquarium trade (unfortuantly) the main culprets: USA and followed by the UK.
The impacts of the aquarium trade:
Fish
A total of 103 species of fish are collected for the aquarium fish trade; 90% of the harvest is focused only on seven species including Yellow Tang, Kole, Achilles Tang, Orangespine Unicornfish, Longnose Butterflyfish, and Moorish Idols.
80% of the catch of marine ornamentals are herbivorous fish. A reduction in the abundance of herbivores can cause algal overgrowth of coral, creating long-term impacts on coral reef health.
Live rock
Fijian is the best rock to buy if your after the 'wild stuff' as locals have found a sustainable way to harvest live rock: They collect plain old dry porus rock normally from land. This rock is very porus and comes in 'dounut' shapes which is practical for use. What they do is anchor the rock to the bed with chain or rope through the holes of the dounut shaped rocks to the sea bed and wait just 8 months for the rock to become inhabited by bacteria and algae (the good type, they take off any nusience algae) it is then shipped off to us. Where it is then cured in more local locations.
However by far the most sustainable way to obtain live rock is from someone breaking down there already established tank.
I will get onto corals a bit later on.
Aquacultured marine fish
Marine fish that have been tank bred has made a big step in the marine conservation world
The more popular and easier to breed specimens such as clownfish and cardinalfish are some of the most readily availiable fish on the market. The pros to tank bred fish are that they are hardier, do a lot better than the wild caught, less prone to disease and generally do a lot better on the whole. They have the same characteristics as the wild ones so you wouldn't know if they were wild or not. Or would you?.. Many aquatic shops sell wild caught specimens as tank bred (TB) to try and gain status. However most are good and if selling TB or wild caught (WC) will state exactly if they are or are not.
Image courtesy of Richard Seaman - http
/www.richard-seaman.com/I have put the white box on to resemble a Juwel Rio 125. Very rough thought measurements done by taking the length of the wrasse in the picture.
But you can tell that that tank is tiny compared to the fish is used to if WC. I hope you can make out sort of what I'm getting at.
BUT
What people on this section of the forum are doing is great. We (except me at this moment) are keeping captive bred fish. This is also good as we can learn from our experiences and if anything happens such as managing to breed a fish this is a break through. As when it happens you can state exactly what the conditions of your tank were and what was in there. How they spawned etc. This can be replicated in labs and it may allow people to breed these fish and it then means that no more WC specimens of that fish won't need to be taken from the wild.
Oh and all this is also in aid of my AS level Coursework for Environmental science as its my chosen topic. So I'm setting up my tank to give evidence. Great excuse IMO
As my teacher is against marine aquariums I will prove her that it can be done 'sustainably' or as close as I can get it
Sorry for the essay but hey it keeps me from causing mischief
