Should Florida ban the sale of wrasses, damselfish and gobies?

[Ohioreefer7]

I have seen that divers in Florida have captured many marine fish off the coast of Florida like a Naso Tang, Moorish Idol, batfish and a Picasso triggerfish. Lucky that these were large and easily noticed fish that were easy to capture. But what if people put fish into the ocean off of Florida like wrasses, damselfish or gobies? They are small and very fast and they would be very difficult to capture. Would it be wise for Florida to ban these kinds of small and fast fish before someone puts them into the ocean?

 

[WVfishguy]

You would have to release a large number to establish a breeding colony. And the trouble with laws is enforcing them - it's almost impossible to ensure small fish would remain out of shops, or out of the state. I believe we are going to have to encourage aquarists not to be ecological vandals, and not repeat the destructive mistakes of the Burmese python or lionfish.

 

[Ohioreefer7]

You would have to release a large number to establish a breeding colony. And the trouble with laws is enforcing them - it's almost impossible to ensure small fish would remain out of shops, or out of the state. I believe we are going to have to encourage aquarists not to be ecological vandals, and not repeat the destructive mistakes of the Burmese python or lionfish.

The lionfish ban seemed to work. There are still only the same two species of lionfish in the Caribbean now. If they didn't have the ban than likely there would be other species of lionfish now.

 

[WVfishguy]

No. I misspoke (wrote). The lionfish invasion did not come from the aquarium hobby. The ban has little or nothing to do with the absence of other species. It's biology. It simply requires a large number of individuals to establish a breeding colony. Said individuals were not available for another species. The two species were (probably) expelled eggs from the ballasts of multiple ships. It had nothing to do with hobbyists. However - I am NOT against such bans.

 

[username in use]

The lionfish invasion did not come from the aquarium hobby.

From my understanding there is no concrete evidence either way. It was most likely a combination of a few different introductions. The real issue with lions is they reach breeding age in a year and during the season can breed every 4 days. They have the ability to proliferate at a rapid pace, far faster than any native species which they are consuming.

 

[WVfishguy]

You are correct, there's no concrete evidence. But from what I've read, the "ship ballast eggs" hypothesis seems to be far and way the most likely scenario, and there are multiple other examples of this kind of introduction, and they involve invertebrates. We don't need the hobby to introduce species - they get here without our help.

 

[ichthyogeek]

This feels like a thread for the responsible reefkeeping subforum. but anyways:

I think it falls to new aquarists to know that maybe their pet fish shouldn't go back into the ocean. And...I'm not sure, but isn't the problem with the lionfish that they're just eating everything and have no natural predators? I do hear that caribbean lionfish is quite tasty when fried though...

With smaller fish like damsels, wrasses, and gobies, the ecological niches that they inhabit in other areas of the world either don't exist, or have already had a fish/organism adapt to that niche. The problem is when the invasive species either creates its own niche and does it too rapidly for the current population to adapt (like the lionfish), or if it outcompetes the current niche holder (like Gambusia mosquitofish out eating native sunfish); otherwise you get a phenomenon where the organism just...exists (I can't remember what the exact term is).

Additionally, there should be (non-cyanide, non-dynamite) ways of catching small fish, otherwise we wouldn't have many of the fish we already have.