Aquacultured vs. Wild Livestock

[NaH2O]

How conscious are you about where your livestock purchases come from? Do you make an effort to purchase corals/fish/inverts that are aquacultured, or even ask if they are aquacultured? Are you willing to spend more for something if you know it was tank raised? Maybe you only like livestock from the wild because there are more choices? Let's find out how conscious we are of our purchases, and if we actively seek out livestock that does not come from the wild. Do you think fish stores should do more in promoting livestock that is tank raised?

 

[returnofsid]

I agree that Aqua-Cultured is desired for preserving the wild...but I also think they're healthier and have a much better survival rate in our aquariums!!

 

[CarlaW]

If it is coral that I am buying, definitly aquacultered, but there are some fish that just don't come aquacultered. It would be a giant help to our hobby if they were, but I don't think we have gotten there yet.

 

[spongebob lover]

aquaculture or i should say from everyone's tanks .

 

[little fishes]

When buying coral from a retailer- aqucultured is the way to go! Fish are another story- like Charlie said. And I put other cuz I also have a fair amount of wild stuff the vast majority of which is "second hand" so not really wild or cultured???

Cheers,
Tracy

 

[mojoreef]

WHat is the difference between aquacultured and wild???


Mike

 

[CarlaW]

You make a very good point!!! Perhaps we have a misunderstanding as to what is going on????

 

[NaH2O]

Hmmm...and here comes mojo getting all deep on us....don't you have some coralline to scrape?

When it pertains to fish and inverts, aquacultured would be livestock that is bred and raised in captivity....like at ORA. With fish, this would be certain species of clowns and cardinals for example. Then there are inverts, like fighting conchs, and Tridacnid clams. I suppose the corals are a bit trickier, not so cut and dry......don't they take a nice wild colony and butcher it up, mounting the pieces to bases? Once the coral encrusts, then its ready? Maybe I'm way off the mark on that. I assume that the term aquaculture is a tad misleading with corals, and folks think all the corals are captively propagated. Wouldn't captive propagation be considered aquaculture? But as far as corals showing up marked as "aquacultured", I figured they were wild colonies that were fragged out and mounted. I feel a schooling coming on....

 

[little fishes]

So my take on propagated corals is that if it was grown in captivity and no "wild" tissue or skeleton is in the frag- then it is aquacultured, IMO simply fraging a wild colony and letting the frags encrust doesn’t make it truly aquacultured- I think there is a grey area with the first and maybe even second generation of frags. Most sps, zoanthids, xenia, and many softies and lps can be easily propagated by fragmentation, for some species like scolymias, cynarias, and trachyphyllias I think there has been less success(or at least less of an effort) with fraging and most specimens for sale are collected. Sexual reproduction of corals is rare in capivity and you will not find a source for them like you will with the fish species from ORA. There is active research on this topic- you can check out one of the papers here http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/112467902/PDFSTART

Cheers,
Tracy

 

[Wolfesbane]

"aq·ua·cul·ture - The cultivation of aquatic animals and plants, esp. fish, shellfish, and seaweed, in natural or controlled marine or freshwater environments"

Aquaculture is a very broad term, especially for corals. According to the basic definition of the word, if there is human involvement and intent to increase size or stock, it can be considered aquacultured whether it's done in a tank or in the ocean. That's why, when we're talking about aquacultured animals, I think that we need to be more specific. For fish, sometimes the terms "tank bred", "tank raised", "captive bred", and "captive raised" are used almost interchangeably. However, there is a distinct difference between each term. Similarly with corals, many people assume that a "propagated" or "aquacultured" coral has been grown in a tank somewhere. Sure, many corals that are grown in large scale production are grown in tanks or troughs, but most of those are supplied with natural sea water. Alot of propagated corals are also grown in penned off areas of the ocean, making them maricultured, an subset of aquaculture.

Anyway, my point is that it's great that so many people are aware of and prefer aquacultured livestock. However, I think we should try, as much as possible, to find tank bred and tank propagated livestock of several generations. This would be a bigger benefit to our tanks and the environment.

~ Steve

 

[Ed Hahn]

I like the idea of things coming from natural environment. I want to believe nature makes animals or changes that protect corals. The more water the more food, the lesser chance of contamination. I just believe environments we create as hobbyist are too easy for predators like Red Bugs, AEFW, or even FW to survive and populate too fast.

I want to think that things that are taken from Ocean will sometime be returned instead of deminishing due to Environmental Changes.

 

[jnarowe]

What's interesting about that Ed is that Mari-cultured corals have a very high rate of pest hitch-hikers. Aqua-cultured corals can be grown in a controlled environment and in theory, if it is a reputable grower, they would not ship out tainted livestock.

 

[mojoreef]

Aquaculture is one of those warm and fuzzy words, kinda like natural . Aquaculture is when the system does not rely on wild stock what so ever. As in the supplier has enough broad stock to not have to tap into wild stock, and that aint easy.
Virtually all suppliers (with a few exceptions) use wild, most just harvest larger colonies and chop them up, mount them and then allow them to grow out a bit. That aint aquaculture, that just a great business plan (why sell one large colony for 50 bucks when you can frag it up and sell the 50 fags from it for 10 bucks a pop?? $50.00 or $ 500.00???).
Anyway their are some that do it, I know ora has been doing it for a while and our own KevenP has been doing for a long time.

So know that we know what the label Aquaculture truely is. What are the pros and cons to aquaculture vs wild??

Mike

 

[jnarowe]

Well that is indeed splitting hairs since the coral originates from the wild whether it is fragged out of the hobby or an aquaculture facility like ORA. At some point they originated in the wild, right?

People who are really interested in actually breeding corals can read Dirk Peterson's book, Breeding Techniques for Reefbuilding Corals. I just picked that one up through Project DIBS.

I feel that any facility that continuously harvests frags from parent colonies and does not import wild replacement colonies could be considered real aquaculture. I think even Dr. Foster Smith is doing some real aquaculture now. I also believe that the discerning aquariast can easily tell whether a colony has been aquacultured, maricultured, or just plain wild harvested.

 

[NaH2O]

So know that we know what the label Aquaculture truely is. What are the pros and cons to aquaculture vs wild??

Mike

When talking about corals, some cons I can think of regarding SPS would be the spread of parasties like acro eating flatworms and redbugs. However, a pro may be better survival rate since the coral is accustomed to being in a tank environment. With wild colonies, you might experience more coral losses when going to the tank environment. Although, when looking at soft corals like zoanthids, you may see the same incidence of parasties (heliacus snails, nudibranchs) from wild to captive.

With fish, aquacultured fish would be a better choice for the opposite reason. Unless the facility they are raised in is shared with wild caught, their incidence of parasites would be very low. Aquacultured fish would also accustomed to the tank environment. Wild caught fish is the opposite. They can come in with intestinal parasites or other diseases. Depending on the fish species, they may adapt well to captivity or do very poorly. The problem is, there are only a handful of fish that are currently being aquacultued, so unless you want to limit your tank to a few species, then you'll get some wild caught fish.

Then you can get into the whole impact on wild livestock being removed from the oceans. Anthony talks about anemones being removed from the wild. Some of these anemones are very old and creates quite an impact when you look at the length of time it takes anemones to repopulate an area. This is why he encourages captive propagation of anemones.

 

[jnarowe]

Your last comment is indeed the most important IMO. I wish hobbiests could get a look inside an aquarium animals distribution center. It is really unbelievable how many animals pass through their doors every week. When you see hundreds of tangs come in on one day and go out the next, it is a bit startling. The number of wild snails harvested weekly is quite scary, and most of what is sold into the hobby will not survive in captivity for any appreciable length of time. That's why I am a founding breeder in the DIBS Project.

 

[morgan]

i dont have the option of buy anything aquacultered corals except for xenias and zoa's but that is still rare
my corals cum from 4 differnt locations the Northen terreitry north western australia and the perth coast also west australia and finnally queensland

currently i am looking at starting an aquacultering bussiness of course corals would all start out as wild caught colonys but after years would become accustom to tank conditions i would also but fragging lots of lps for cultavation such as cataphyillias and euphyillias

just giving the australian imput into this convo sorry for poor spelling its late right now have a good one catch ya

 

[DrHank]

I try to buy what appears to be the healthiest regardless of origin. I also avoid buying any wild that has little or no chance of surviving and attempt to discourage others as well. I am selective on who I buy from or where I buy livestock. I also research potential new acquisitions before purchasing to try and ensure success in my tanks.

 

[NaH2O]

Good point. I think research is the best tool we can possibly use, and refraining from the purchase until we can research is difficult sometimes.

 

[Briguy]

I buy both , but if there were W.C. and Aquacultured at the same place I would buy the healthier and better looking fish . I do like wild caught clownfish better as they seem to host easier .