cool thread, but i hold serious issue with the industry. as i understand it, most, if not all the stock available in aquaria are captured from the wild, impactin natural ecosystems n contributin to overfishin n the decline of biodiversity. it's amazin seein these weird n beautiful animals in an aquarium but i intensely dislike how they come to be there. just my 2 cents.
neverbreak
GREAT post! I can speak at some length to this.
First, with specific regard to marine organisms, yes, many are indeed wild caught/collected, but not all. In comparison though, the total sum impact of ornamental collection, vs food collection is astonishingly small. In fact, the greatest impact on biodiversity, natural ecosystems and overfishing is still the food fish market. The worst? The Hong Kong/Chinese
live fish market. Why? Those animals are collected using cyanide. It stuns them long enough to allow easy capture, without outright killing them. Of course, there are many tertiary effects seen on the reef, and one has to wonder if someone's eating a lot of fish that they saw live one minute and has then been served, how much cyanide are they actually consuming?
Pair that collection method with animals for an endeavor where the goal is longevity and you get a bad mix. They may eat, but they whither away, their stomachs unable to absorb the nutrition offered to them. (This is how we know that an animal has been collected with cyanide
even if it comes back with acceptable levels or at zero!)
Bet you didn't know that the countries where these animals are fished have acceptable cyanide tissue levels, didja? They do, for a few reasons. One is an attempt to control cyanide use in food fish collection, the other is the fact that some of these circumtropical countries are also mined for gold, and so animals downstream of any goldmining will have been exposed to cyanide via watershed pathways. The other reason, one we don't talk about a lot in the industry, is that in certain countries (PI) there are basically gangs that control the fisherfolk and their outlets, and once we get into that territory we're stepping into a huge, complex mess of families, villages, gangs or mafiosi, pirates and so on.
And what you are bringing up here has played a role in why I no longer keep salties, and certain specific animals.
However! That said, HUGE leaps have been taken in husbandry. Clownfish should no longer be being wild caught, and I think we can say the same for most damselfishes and anything that has a non-pelagic larval stage. The development of kreisels (a type of system that doesn't kill plankton and other pelagics, such as jellyfishes) has allowed even more better husbandry. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, captive-bred sea horses are widely available. I don't know anyone who has wild-caught corals in their tanks anymore, and the same is done with Tridacnids (giant clams).
And in my opinion, if the fisherfolk of these countries can be taught and then use sustainable collection methods then that, along with preservation of the MOST important areas, those being estuaries, lagoons and mangroves--all coastal areas where many animals spend their time as juveniles--along with locals creating sea 'farms' for aquarium specimens, then everyone wins.
Care can be taken, great care should be taken, when considering what one is going to keep and how. That beautiful imperator angelfish up there? Great for home systems if we're talking at least 100gals, several hundred to thousands would be better. It has a cousin, another angelfish called the Regal angelfish. This animal should not be collected and offered for sale AT ALL! Why? It only eats coral and so they usually die within a few months to years of capture.
Anemones? Carpets shouldn't be collected, they don't live in home aquaria very well or long. Bubble tips, or rose bubble tips? Are split and shared very easily, thrive in home aquaria conditions.
There's a lot to know and a lot to say about all of this, but mostly, care must be taken. :D I LOVE that you gave me an opportunity to talk about these issues, too, btw. Thank you.