Marie, you and I will simply have to disagree. More than anything I simply take offense to the treatment being offered to the animals in question as "inhumane". I am not inflicting bodily harm upon these fish, nor am I starving them, nor am I neglecting them. They are two very healthy and fat young Flame Angelfish living in a pretty natural environment that happens to be enclosed with some glass walls. They have plenty of room to flit about, pick, nip, graze, hide, give chase, get away, have solitude, interact, and hopefully one day mate.
We really are dealing with the lesser of a few evils here. Here's my thought.
Most Humane - don't harvest animals from the wild in the first place.
Least Humane - wiping the species off the planet.
Somewhere in between there lies where we are. I don't think the marine aquarium hobby is going away anytime soon. On the other end of the continuum it's quite possible that we may not have any truly viable reefs in a couple hundred years.
Private captive breeding programs are driven by two things - a sense of purpose and profit. Unfortnately profit is the dominant motivator in any business situation. Long before we'll see sufficient stocks of captive reared fish, it needs to be proven a profitable venture. Demand as it currently stands isn't enough. I simply can't justify dropping $1000 on an captive bred angelfish I can pick up for $150 WC, if I wanted that species to begin with. Notice how Frank is really only working with those species that ARE NOT available otherwise, thus commanding a high selling price to begin with?
Why isn't anyone producing Pearly Jawfish? They're simply not economically feasible. Why isn't Frank producing Flames? Same reason.
Why is our hobby important? I don't even need to start listing the merits and negative impacts. Why is captive breeding important? First, we may someday be the "ark" for the ongoing survival of a variety of species because we've destroyed their natural environments. One needs only look to Lake Victoria to learn how easily humans can "get it wrong". We're totally paying for it now. 400 species, possibly twice that many, and yet only 40 are even IN captivity, and of those, some are already extinct or in danger of extinction. Their home is forever changed, it's not like we'll even be able to reintroduce them to the lake anytime soon. And the sad fact is that other than a few dedicated hobbyists and an institutional program, these fish basically don't exist.
Breeding efforts, especially with fish that aren't currently being produced in captivity, potentially have enormous impact. So when it comes down to me trying to pair flame angels in a 24 gallon reef tank with a breeding pair of percs, a pearly jaw and a purple firefish, I take some offense to choice being labeled as "inhumane".
I've asked several questions of you, yet have not seen any facts or documentation to address those questions. Have they already been paired and spawned in a tank as small or smaller as the one I'm working with? What documentation do you have that the fish cannot be "happy and healthy" in such a small environment? Therefore, all I must do is reraise my earlier comments about WHY I decided to attempt this.
1. To see IF it was possible to pair Centropyge in such a small environment. IF it IS, it saves potential breeders space, money, salt etc.
2. IF they form a pair, will they spawn in such a small / short container? With other pelagic spawners who have "height requirements" I've found the publicly stated "requirements" to be completely incorrect. Thus I personally question this requirement when it comes to Centropyge as well.
3. IF they spawn in such a "short" tank, will the eggs still be fertile? IF they ARE, once again I've shot down the prevailing notions about height requirements - again saves space, time, money etc...
4. IF I get so far as to have viable larvae, CAN I crack rearing them in an INLAND setting without access to the ocean for water, larval feeds etc. IF I can, another HUGE breakthrough going against the currently held notions of how to produce fish from this genus, making the breeding and rearing of Centropyge less of a mystery and more of a commonplace, and more economical for more individuals to undertake. I'm not trying to bring down RTC or anything, but hey, if captive bred flames are a regular occurance and are comparable in price, that acheives a good thing in the end, if nothing else it allows the informed consumer to make a choice for the better.
And let me end this all by saying again that the only reason I have FLAMES is 'cause they're Renee's favorite fish. My general philosphy is that IF I can provide a WC fish I keep the opportunity to reproduce in captivity, I should. We can all learn something, even if I'm not successful. AND I had a backup plan SHOULD the pair have NOT coexisted - they would've both had comfortable homes and heck, if they "outgrow" them they can always be redistributed among my hobbyist friends. Why am I using 24 gallon tanks? Because that's literally all we had room for when we moved here.
I know I won't change your mind that a 24 gallon is "too small" for a Centropyge, although I will firmly disagree. And if I can get them to "goal #2", spawning in the 24 gallon, I'll take that as a hard fought "win" in this debate, disproving all the concepts you've put forth so far, based on my earlier notions of what spawning signifies.
FWIW,
Matt
How you do that,quote a part,answer,keep quoting,keep answering,etc.I can only quote the whole thing and erase parts of it.
