I have a question. How much in percentage is your coral livestock captive bred???

90% cultured. plus 100's of frags supplied back to the LFS. I don't know if the OP wanted this to be a debate. my opinion this hobby might not be the best thing for wild reefs, but that doesn't mean I will be irresponsible with my stocking and will provide the best care I can for my corals.
 
There is no way to have a reef tank and be responsible it's like saying. I love to kill but I'm responsible I only kill criminals. Any support of the hobby in ANY manner opens the door for a 99% mortality rate the first year in captivity, but with that said. Imop fish = food source and corals as awesome as they are just barely more complex then plants. When we fumigate our house and kill millions of insects do we say well.. you know if there was a responsible way to evict the termites without killing them I would go that route. No of course not and insect are MUCH higher on the food chain then corals. We don't care about the millions of mysis, krill, or anything else we kill to feed our tanks, or killing any pests that dare threaten our rare expensive corals. Why shouldn't an AEFW have just as much right to live as your acropora? You want to be an environmentalist great! Save the reefs, but don't keep a tank and then claim you are responsible or care. That's a blatant contradiction. oh and don't think give the tables being turned you would see any pity living out on the reef if say you were a little copepod. Corals/Reefs are the most dog-eat-dog cut throat part of our ecosystem I have ever had the pleasure of learning about and observing..

If I can't eat you, I will Smoother you, If i can't smoother you I will sting you, if I can't sting you I will poison you. You think corals feel bad for each other when they kill each other?
 
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Can't remember where most of my stuff came from, I'd be willing to bet it was captive bred (other reefers tanks)... a few pieces from stores that came on frag plugs, not sure if those are captive mariculture from overseas or something that was done here at wholesalers...

however while you can get on your high horse about being captive bred, there is another side to wild caught. If its from places that collect responsibly (i.e. don't go in with a crowbar destroying a bunch of corals just to get one timid fish) you could actually be helping the reefs by buying wild (or maricultured) caught stuff. Simply put they don't see much money where corals are, by injecting your money into their economy (even if it gets split 6 ways to Sunday), which that can use to make sure that their resource stays viable, to protect against poachers, etc... however its their waters, their resources so they need to understand what they have and ultimately they make the decisions.

As it stands the largest issue facing these islands is construction... coral makes a great component to concrete mixtures, it's available, abundant, and cheap as snot (compared to shipping it in), what are you going to tell them? Stop building? If they find out there is a viable economic resource they might be less likely to strip mine all for the components to build on land... if you boycott all wild caught products you're basically telling them that there is no economy in keeping the coral reefs in tact and healthy and your "good" intentions actually have bad consequences. Eco-tourism is great, but you can have both eco-tourism and healthy collection of corals.

While most of my stuff in my tank is from other tanks, it's mostly because I'm a cheap booger :D Arguments of fuel cost to fly them ... irrelevant simply put planes don't fly with just corals, planes with people fly out of those regions, corals simply ride in the cargo hold if there's room.
 
All my SPS and LPS grew from frags, bought from fellow reefers. Got 19 fish in total from which my unicorn tang and copper band are wild caught and rest are captive bread.
 
about 90% of mine are wild acro colonies just because I dont want the same cultured corals as the everybody else....I'm sure it takes a toll on the reefs but somebody is gonna by them so why not me...of course I do make wholesale ordres so its a bit easier for me to say,well i'm gonna keep this one..but i do prop alot of them and always try to keep 1 frag to grow into a mother colony....
 
truthfully i dont know . seems like you put a lot of trust in people who are selling you things at a profit .....i have bought many bigger colonies to frag up and kept a few small pieces for my display , does this then then make the frags aquacultured since they have grown ? most pet stores order from other countries .....
 
truthfully i dont know . seems like you put a lot of trust in people who are selling you things at a profit .....i have bought many bigger colonies to frag up and kept a few small pieces for my display , does this then then make the frags aquacultured since they have grown ? most pet stores order from other countries .....

Not to get too far off subject but a true aquacultured process takes about 1 year from start to finish. Although you do see encrusting 1st generation frags become more hardy than their mother colony, 2nd generations frags are incredibly hardier than than 1st. The coral is usually considered aquacultured when they get to their 3rd generation.
 
Everything but my frags are wild. (or maricultured)

I would say 70-80% of my tank is wild, but that means nothing to me.

I read years ago 99% of marine animals sold for hobbyist die in the first year. I'm sorry but if you are really conscious about reefs you wouldn't have a reef tank. I don't see the point in sugar coating it and pretending like we care. We don't, we only care that we don't waste our money if our corals die on us.

Hmmmm....you point has merit but I cant say that I agree 100% to what you are saying.

I care about the environment..... but I still drive a car.

I care about the treatment of animals....but I still eat meat.

Does this make me a hypocrite. Maybe but we all are sometimes.
 
in my new tank, 100% of my corals are aquacultured and 50% of my fish are tank raised.
Being new to the hobby, I need to do more research on the environmental issues at hand.
 
100% wild, i dont have a choice :(

when i was stateside, i have to say i had much better success with captive/aqua.

i would never suggest to anyone to get wild SPS. too hard to acclimae.

C
 
With the exception of a couple of LPS, my corals have always been aquacultured or maricultured (from reliable sources). All of the livestock in my new system--fishes, corals, anemone--will be aquacultured.
 
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