def. a double edged sword. ive had people come into my house and see the tank that new nothing about fish and they were floored, asking me a million questions. ive had people start their own tanks even. i agree is will take some toll on the world system but i think that it also raises public empathy for the issue.
The ecological impacts of our addiction
- Thread starter jglackin
- Start date
NATIVEVAMAN
New member
There are a lot of edible fish on coral reefs the world over. the problem is that nets wont work on a reef. So how do you get the fish off the reef? Why you use dinamite of course. And in doing so you kill more coral and inedible species in a day than reefers could use in two lifetimes.
I read somewhere about an entire coral reef that was covered up with dirt to build an airport.
In florida literaly thousands of staghorn corals have died because the water is to warm.
Literally thousands of coral heads die every day,and not at the hands of reefers.
I dont think we are the problem.....but we can be the solution.
I say go get a boat and go to the reef and get every coral you can and come home and propagate,propogate,propagate.
Would it be easy to repopulate a reef?heck no. But could millions of reefers the world over do it? Heck yes........lets get started.
I read somewhere about an entire coral reef that was covered up with dirt to build an airport.
In florida literaly thousands of staghorn corals have died because the water is to warm.
Literally thousands of coral heads die every day,and not at the hands of reefers.
I dont think we are the problem.....but we can be the solution.
I say go get a boat and go to the reef and get every coral you can and come home and propagate,propogate,propagate.
Would it be easy to repopulate a reef?heck no. But could millions of reefers the world over do it? Heck yes........lets get started.
jglackin
New member
I am assuming, hoping, that this was tongue in cheek.
Corals in the Florida Keys are dying from many things. The "RO" water supply for the Keys is the Florida Everglades. The Everglades are so polluted at this point, the State health officials recommend that people eat no more than one fish a month from the Everglades and pregnant women and people with suppressed immune systems stay completely away from it. What affect do you think billions of gallons of phosphate rich, heavily polluted water being pumped into the Keys every day is having on the corals? Then, throw in a bunch of amateur divers in the water stomping all over everything and dragging their gear over the coral heads as they try to figure out how to control their buoyancy, and you have a lot of dead and dying coral.
Sure, there are much bigger problems going on with the coral reefs than reef keeping. Just like throwing your soda cans out the window of your car, there are much bigger problems with pollution from corporations and third world countries, so why stop throwing your trash out the window of your car, right?
Corals in the Florida Keys are dying from many things. The "RO" water supply for the Keys is the Florida Everglades. The Everglades are so polluted at this point, the State health officials recommend that people eat no more than one fish a month from the Everglades and pregnant women and people with suppressed immune systems stay completely away from it. What affect do you think billions of gallons of phosphate rich, heavily polluted water being pumped into the Keys every day is having on the corals? Then, throw in a bunch of amateur divers in the water stomping all over everything and dragging their gear over the coral heads as they try to figure out how to control their buoyancy, and you have a lot of dead and dying coral.
Sure, there are much bigger problems going on with the coral reefs than reef keeping. Just like throwing your soda cans out the window of your car, there are much bigger problems with pollution from corporations and third world countries, so why stop throwing your trash out the window of your car, right?
NATIVEVAMAN
New member
Jim, you are preaching to choir on this one, I agree with you.I guess my point would be this. We are the ones doing the most visibal damage to the reefs because people see the direct results of what we do (buy coral and live rock). They dont see all the other things that are happening in Florida or figi or your neighbor dumping the old oil from his car in the gutter.Wether we like it or not, wether its true or not,we are being blamed.I just think its up to us to do something about it besides pointing fingers at the other guy.This planet is sick and we as a people have made it that way at least in some small way. Now we need to fix it and whining wont get the job done.(Not implying that you were whining).
Was my comment about going down to figi and bringing back the coral tongue in cheek,maybe a little. Was my comment about repopulating a reef tongue in cheek,absolutly not.Are there other problems beside what I mentioned in my last post? Certainly there are. I bet together we could fill a book.
Was my comment about going down to figi and bringing back the coral tongue in cheek,maybe a little. Was my comment about repopulating a reef tongue in cheek,absolutly not.Are there other problems beside what I mentioned in my last post? Certainly there are. I bet together we could fill a book.
jglackin
New member
I am sorry, I am not getting your logic. Are you saying that the shrimp and salmon would be taking fish from the ocean anyway, so, if we are taking only 1.8 kilos of fish to grow 1 kilo of salmon or shrimp, we are doing good?
A couple of things:
1. Salmon and shrimp don't trawl for their food and destroy large swaths of the seabed, seahorses, sand dollars, etc.
2. Shrimp don't live off of captured fish in the wild. They eat dead fish, plankton, and etc. Scooping up bait fish to feed them is man's answer to feeding them when farm raising them.
PRINCE_NAMOR
In Memoriam
Re: The ecological impacts of our addiction
:rollface:
How do they taste? do you prefer Nike or Reebok?......jk
:rollface:
PRINCE_NAMOR
In Memoriam
Seriously though, I just watched world news tonight about the cleanup off the coast of Florida. Seems like some genious decided tires would make a good artificial reef and they dumped over 2 million tires into the ocean. Those tires are now bumping into the natural reefs breaking them apart. I think we need solutions, but we should think them out very well.
PRINCE_NAMOR
In Memoriam
genious I meant genius, DUHHH! lol
loosecannon
New member
the aquarium hobby is a sound and worthwhile pursuit, educational not only for us but for the many people who visit and view our reef`s. For several hundred thousand individuals , the aquarium trade is a livelihood- a way to make a living by catching,farming,or trading aquarium organisms. The aquatic trade is particularly important as a source of income in many third world countries, where whole local communities can be dependent on the capture or aquaculture of ornamental fishes and invertebrates. The # of people in Sri Lanka alone involved in the export of reef animals is over 50,000. The FAO reported that the export value of ornamental fishes and invertebrates in 1996 a lone was more than $200,000,000 bucks U.S. . In excess of 60 % of that some $130,000,000 , wentback into the economies of this countries. example in 1994, the Maldives exported less than 250 kg. of ornamental fishes to the United Kingdom and received , in terms of net weight of fish, more than $496,000 per ton. In contrast, food fish harvested from the in the Seychelles was exported at a value of just$6,000 per ton. Animals suce as Tridacan spp. that were nearly wiped out in many areas by overcollection for the asian food trade are now being propagated by many tropical island nations. Coral farms that produce small , started colonies of numerous species are also appearing in many place in the world. Some of these farms are even involved in projects to restock reefs that have been damaged by bleaching events and other natural or man made disasters. Beyond supporting global eforts to build a sustainable aquarium trade, there are alos immediate actions we can take on a more personal level.
HPD Turbo
New member
My part on preserving the natural wild is not purschase any live stock, I only adopt them from friend, or from people in the hobby in my country.
I wait a lot when I want something. But you can be surpriced how much people want to get rid of an animal/invert.
Please search before buying.
For every creature that we get and other one is dead.
I wait a lot when I want something. But you can be surpriced how much people want to get rid of an animal/invert.
Please search before buying.
For every creature that we get and other one is dead.
greenbean36191
Premium Member
Yes, that's doing good. You're talking about a 10-12 kilos of fish being eaten for each kilo an animal puts on in the wild. In captivity you're looking at about 1-3 kilos of food (not fish) per kilo of growth. No more than 40% of that food is fishmeal (usually much less, and now often completely replaced by soy protein). That fishmeal is made up waste from fish processing and menhaden, which isn't captured by bottom trawlers, has extremely low bycatch rates, and ATM is being harvested sustainably.
Chickens and cattle eat about 25% more fish per lb of growth than farmed fish do and are by far the leading consumers of fishmeal.
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greenbean36191
Premium Member
The Keys have been right on the edge for their entire history, which has more to do with the topography of Florida Bay than the state of the water coming from the Everglades. The idea that much of the pollution from the Glades is making it out to the reefs isn't very well supported. Working to clean up the water running into the swamp is a great idea of course, but it's not likely to have much, if any, effect on the health of the reefs.
The only way to make it work is to address the underlying problems that killed the corals off in the first place. In the Caribbean that's primarily been increasing temps and the diseases associated with that.
That's a pretty broad brush. There certainly are aquaculture operations that aren't done sustainably, such as Asian shrimp farming and inshore salmon farming, but there are also plenty that are completely sustainable. Oysters, giant clams, Trochus, shrimp, cobia, and too many others to list are all being done sustainably.
jglackin
New member
Well, just like man-made global warming, there are those that are behind it and there are those that deny it exists. In the case of the Everglades, the case is in the courts and it is also in Congress. There is much talk about the pollution from the Everglades making it to the reefs.
greenbean36191
Premium Member
The bodies of evidence supporting the impact of Everglades runoff and anthropogenic warming are in totally different leagues.
People have been writing about the historically poor development of the Keys reefs and how they shouldn't be used as canaries for the rest of the Carribean reefs longer than runoff from the Glades has been a problem. You see the same patterns of poor development and decline in parts of the Bahamas where there isn't the issue of runoff, but the bottom topography is similar. When people have looked for the nutrients from the Glades on the reefs they haven't found them except in short, rare pulses after extremely heavy rains. Those types of nutrient pulses are common throughout the Caribbean due to entirely natural causes, and generally don't cause long term problems. There is nothing about the FL case that seems to make it special. There are nutrient problems in some areas of the Keys, but they're mainly due to local sources, not the Everglades.
I can guarantee you that if you were to ask the president of the International Society for Reef Studies, which is devoted to reef conservation, he would tell you that trying to make a difference on the reefs by fixing the Everglades is a feel-good measure. There are plenty of man-made problems in the Keys, but there is very little evidence showing Glades runoff is one of them.
People have been writing about the historically poor development of the Keys reefs and how they shouldn't be used as canaries for the rest of the Carribean reefs longer than runoff from the Glades has been a problem. You see the same patterns of poor development and decline in parts of the Bahamas where there isn't the issue of runoff, but the bottom topography is similar. When people have looked for the nutrients from the Glades on the reefs they haven't found them except in short, rare pulses after extremely heavy rains. Those types of nutrient pulses are common throughout the Caribbean due to entirely natural causes, and generally don't cause long term problems. There is nothing about the FL case that seems to make it special. There are nutrient problems in some areas of the Keys, but they're mainly due to local sources, not the Everglades.
I can guarantee you that if you were to ask the president of the International Society for Reef Studies, which is devoted to reef conservation, he would tell you that trying to make a difference on the reefs by fixing the Everglades is a feel-good measure. There are plenty of man-made problems in the Keys, but there is very little evidence showing Glades runoff is one of them.
loosecannon
New member
Greenbean36191: The everglades mangroves and reefs are all counected! P.S. those pepole in fl. should all go back to Long Island!
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