Is it bad for natural coral reefs...?

[annka5]

I'm thinking of having a marine tank.

However, husband is fairly set against it as he's heard (though admittedly not from anyone who particularly knows) that marine fish keeping has a fairly shocking impact on coral reefs, in that:

Coral is taken from the reef, which is clearly incredibly damaging, but most of the coral taken disintegrates on route, therefore impact is a lot worse than you'd initally think.
Fish are taken from reefs, again the overwhelming majority die en reute and most of the fishing practices themsleves cause significant damage to reefs.

I appreciate that you all keep marine tanks,and I'm genuinely not trying to wind anyone up; but the points kind of make sense (from my position of limited knowledge!!).

Any comments (particularly those which prove these statements wrong so I can convince husbnad and get my marine tank), or sources of more info on this aspect would be great.

 

[parker313]

It is possible to buy aquacultured corals and tank bred fish. I know that at www.seacrop.com and www.garf.org you can get some good information. SeaCrop sells corals they've rescued or have grown themselves and garf is reefkeepers dedicated to preserving natural reefs by showing hobbyists how to propogate corals themselves. Also, I know my lfs ONLY sells tank bred fish but I don't know how common that is.

Those 2 sites would be a good place to start looking at some info

 

[Ed4567]

There certainly are ethical issues to keeping a marine tank, although your actual impact can be minimised if you are careful- aquacultured live rock, propigated corals, and tank bred fish (clownfish, cardinals etc.).

Here is a long thread on the issue from reefcentral going into plenty of detail:
http/www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...25&pagenumber=1

 

[annka5]

Thanks for that. I actually didn't realise how possible it was to propagate marine tank "stuff" outside of a reef.

Maybe marine tank is an option, then.

 

[FrAnK3333]

There are tank bred corals and fish. Ocellaris clownfish (nemo fish) are tank bred usually.