Wild Caught vs Aquacultured

[MUCHO REEF]

I'm not an SPS person by any strecth. I think they are stunningly gorgeous, but my appeal has always been with softies. I have purchased a piece here and there, a digitata, a chips, a green slimer to name a few over the years. Mainly out of curiosity to see if they would propser in my tank with zoos, shrooms and blastos. Sure enough, they did well, but they stuck out like a sore thumb. They seem to throw off the entire scheme of my tank which was 99.9 % softies with one or two acros gutting out from the reef. I've heard the many discussions on wild caught vs culture acros in that the wild caught colonies grew at a snails pace in contrast to the cultured colonies which grew much faster. My reefing buddy has assured me for years that this is true. Which brings me to this question as a topic of discussion.

Do you feel the same holds true for Zoanthids? By this I mean have you noticed your store bought colonies growing slower than your cultured frags or colonies?

Mucho

 

[surfnvb7]

its so hard to tell what zoanthid frags/colonies come from the wild, and which are aquacultured/maricultured.

its pretty obvious with SPS stuff, as when you buy aquacultured stuff from a store or online it comes on some sort of frag plug. most obvious being from ORA, which is great stuff.

i myself have no clue what was aquacultured and what was wild that i bought from any store unless it was on a frag plug of some sorts.

i guess the only way i've noticed before is if it came with alot of pests and macro algae, that it prob came from the wild. no idea on growth rates, as i have no clue what came from the wild and what didnt.

if someone has some insights into what to look for if it is wild or not i'd surely like to know

 

[Azurel]

I would say that if you see some zoanthids on a small 1" to 3" piece of rock most likely it was fragged at some point from a larger colony or was aqua-cultured. You are right though surfnvb7 it is very difficult to tell. The shop I get all of my zoanthids at are aqua-cultured, they will tell you if they are wild also. They try to stick with aqua-cultured because they were getting wilds and it was coming in with nudis and spiders. They dip but to risk the whole stock they now go with aqua-cultured stuff.

 

[mummra100769]

i would take aquacultured over wild any day. wilds seem to have so many problems aclimating to captive life.

 

[ficklefins]

At what point are zoas considered aquacultured?

Personally I think you can consider new growth in someone's tank as aquacultured zoas. I would agree that zoas that have grown under tank conditions are by far better off than those from the wild. They are better adjusted to lights, synthetic water, and the occasional swing in conditions.

Then again, once you get wild zoas into your tank wouldn't the new growth then become aquacultured. Then making the whole zoanthid colony grow better? I think I just confused myself... :crazy1:

 

[Azurel]

LOL....I think the new growth could be described as aqua-cultured.

 

[MyLittleReef]

I try to buy as much aquacultured stuff as possible.

 

[ckfazz]

I have noticed that the smaller frags (15-25 polyps) seem to grow faster than larger colonies which I would assume are wild colonies. I would aslo assume that the frags have had a longer time to adjust to the aquarium environment than the original wild mother colony which would make for stronger more rapid growth patterns. I think that with any coral, the wild colonies seem to be stunted at first until they aclimate to our tank conditions, due to the prestine conditions of the large oceans, which is bypassed when you purchase a frag or an aquacultured coral. JMHO

Chris

 

[usagolf]

I would really like to see stores have more Aqua-cultured corals.

Unfortunately when I see frags in a store it is because the store got in a big colony and broke it up. I know they break them up to make it more affordable to everybody, and I think that is great. I just wish that they would buy more local frags when possible.

 

[msman825]

ckfazz, i notice that too. why does 1 or 2 polyps seem to grow faster, is it that its just more noticeable. And the darker ones seem to grow faster too. might be that i want the bright ones.

 

[surfnvb7]

usagolf.....you are exactly right.

i saw some pink palythoas with green centers, been looking for them forever. but the rock it was on in a LFS was priced at $69. a little too steep for me.

next day i went back, they had broke the same colony up into 4-5 pieces, for $39 each....much more affordable for me. but the LFS wins big time by making frags.

same goes with SPS colonies/frags. sell frags at $20 each, sell the colony at $60.

its obviously most affordable if you can get a colony and split it up b/w several people.

i wonder if there are any downsides of aquacultured zoanthids yet. somewhat like the SPS equivalent of the red bugs, which have spread via aquaculture, not coming in on wild colonies. i'm soooo worried about getting an sps frag with either bugs for flatworms now a days.

 

[Reef Junkie]

Ron Shimek used to tell us hobbyists that the wild reef is not a stable place by any stretch of imagination. Huge fluctuations in Temp, Salinty, current. Yet colonies grow best in the wild.

Put them in a static aquarium and they grow slower.
You would think that without competition and stable conditions they would grow like "wild"... Yet, we know what happens to our corals when we have major fluctuations, they die.

There is a direct correlation between fragging corals and growth. Especially when it comes to our Aquariums.

So maybe next time you're at the LFS and the store has a colony for $79.95, you should say "fragging that coral into 4 and selling a frag to me for $39 would make me buy the coral from you, you'd sell the others faster and make double your money!"

I think we should encourage more fragging, even at the LFS level. That way wild caught or cultured, you should have a lower mortality rate.

Bill

 

[natemorriss]

Nobody has mentioned the fact that zoanthids probably all grow at different rates. I assume some grow fast and some grow slow in the wild. Additionally many may even be too fragile to survive in a tank and die before reproducing. Therefore the zoas that are available via aquaculture are not just the ones that survive but they must thrive in tank conditions. The fast growing corals, in tanks, will be fragged and traded far more often then the slow growing ones. this is why aquacultered corals are so much better then the free range coral, the weak/poor reproducing corals have been weeded out. I really donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t think it a mater of coral acclimating to tank conditions I think itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s more of a natural selection with the weak corals not surviving to be fragged and cultured.

NATE

 

[ficklefins]

What is an aquacultured zoanthid, or at what point can a colony be considered aquacultured?

 

[Reef Junkie]

Fickle,
I guess any "new" growth on a colony would be considered aquacultured. Or a better term would be captive grown.

If a colony is healthy and stable in it's captive enviroment, then it's safe to assume that new growth would be considered aquacultured.

Yet, what would the original mass of the colony be considered? Captive wild?

Semantics that have almost no consequenses. Unless your colony was afflicted with a disease that only affected the original wild colony.

Babble babble babble... I'll shutup now.:lol:

Bill

 

[zorics]

I agree... New polyps are aquacultured. and as far as growing faster, it makes sense, since the coral has adapted to the tank setting, just like a child born in a new country tend to adapt better than an immigrant

 

[ckfazz]

Reef Junkie,

Even though the world's oceans do have major fluctuations, they usually happen gradually and the ocean is so vast it gives the corals time to adjust. When a swing happens in one of our tanks it is usually over a few hour time period with much less volumes of water for the corals to be able to compensate quickly enough resulting in their die off.
When I stated prestine conditions, I probably should have clarified that a little better. What I meant was, the food sources present in the water column, natural sunlight filtering through to the corals, the current, etc.... With the conditions that they are used to, it seems only natural that when we place them into our controlled environments with minimal changes that they will need time to adjust to it before going back to their normal cycles. With aquacultured or frags, they are already adjusted to our tanks which is why I believe we see the most growth out of these versus wild caught. Just my opinion and I might be wrong.

 

[Reef Junkie]

zorics, right on!

Gotcha ckfazz.

FYI, as per our dearly departed (just left the board) Mr. Shimek. These fluctuations happen fast. Like temp rises of 10 degrees in a matter of hours. Same with Salinty (Rain) which would also affect the PH.

So, it's ironic that these animals that are so resilient to natures sudden changes in the wild have such a high mortality rate in our controlled enviroment.

Also, I would say a majority of aquarists here that have some experience fragging would agree that it is best to immediately frag freshly imported wild colonies.

So, it seems that fragging is the precursor to aquaculturing. That it makes sense to fragment newly aquired wild colonies. And that all subsequent polyps formed would then be considered aquacultured. With the main Mother colony being considered an acclimated wild colony. If even the mother colony can be discerned from the rest of the fragmented colony.

Too many semantics...

Maybe the topic should be "do you fragment your wild colony's for aquaculture or let them grow out naturally?"

I'm so beyond rambling...

Thanks for your input ckfazz.