Ladies and Gentlemen of the captive reef,
I need a little help. The Marine Ornamentals 2001 conference, sponsored by Sea Grant, is being held
in Orlando, Florida on Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, 2001. The theme of the conference is Collection, Culture,
and Conservation. Www.ifas.ufl.edu/~coferweb/MO This is an international conference and it is
unique in that it targets all facets of the marine life industry, the collectors, the breeders, the
wholesalers and retailers, the scientists, the environmentalists, and, of course, the cornerstone of the
industry, the hobbyists themselves. Bringing all of these varied interests together produces an
extraordinary development of ideas and exchange of information that can only take place in such a
cosmopolitan gathering.
I am giving the keynote address for the section on Culture, not an easy task. I am trying, through a
survey of scientists, commercial breeders, and hobbyists, to characterize and describe the current
state of the culture of marine ornamental organisms. And I need a lot of hobbyists to provide
information on their culture activities. The freshwater branch of the aquarium hobby has always had
a lot of culture, the marine branch was basically without culture up to the late 80's. The eruption of
reef tanks into the hobby at that time changed things dramatically. Now marine hobbyists can find
culture in single tanks and small systems without establishing a planktonic food chain and spending
countless hours culturing larvae. Many of us thrill at the abundant growth of photosynthetic
invertebrates and often sell or give away excess organisms, and many have also ventured into fish
and mobile invertebrate culture, which is becoming easier to do. I want to be able to report to the
industry, the collectors, the environmentalists, equipment manufacturers, the breeders, the scientists,
and to your fellow hobbyists, what hobbyists are doing in culture, their successes and failures, and
how they think and feel about this aspect of the hobby. This will help greatly in developing a broad
understanding of the hobby from the hobbyists point of view.
So I have questionnaire that I would very much like for hobbyists engaged in the culture of marine
organisms, at any level, to answer for me. It is only 10 questions and won’t take much time. (Tell
me if you culture as a commercial breeder or scientist and I will sent those questions.) If possible I
would like to post the questionnaire on this board and have hobbyists email me the answers, but I
don’t know if that is allowed, so I would ask you to email me your email address if you would like
to participate, and I will quickly email you the questions. (This email thing is really fantastic.) My
email address is [email protected] (Note that there is an underline character between the first
and last names and that this is often lost in that blue underline that usually goes under the address.
I wish I knew that when I set it up.)
Martin A. Moe, Jr.
I need a little help. The Marine Ornamentals 2001 conference, sponsored by Sea Grant, is being held
in Orlando, Florida on Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, 2001. The theme of the conference is Collection, Culture,
and Conservation. Www.ifas.ufl.edu/~coferweb/MO This is an international conference and it is
unique in that it targets all facets of the marine life industry, the collectors, the breeders, the
wholesalers and retailers, the scientists, the environmentalists, and, of course, the cornerstone of the
industry, the hobbyists themselves. Bringing all of these varied interests together produces an
extraordinary development of ideas and exchange of information that can only take place in such a
cosmopolitan gathering.
I am giving the keynote address for the section on Culture, not an easy task. I am trying, through a
survey of scientists, commercial breeders, and hobbyists, to characterize and describe the current
state of the culture of marine ornamental organisms. And I need a lot of hobbyists to provide
information on their culture activities. The freshwater branch of the aquarium hobby has always had
a lot of culture, the marine branch was basically without culture up to the late 80's. The eruption of
reef tanks into the hobby at that time changed things dramatically. Now marine hobbyists can find
culture in single tanks and small systems without establishing a planktonic food chain and spending
countless hours culturing larvae. Many of us thrill at the abundant growth of photosynthetic
invertebrates and often sell or give away excess organisms, and many have also ventured into fish
and mobile invertebrate culture, which is becoming easier to do. I want to be able to report to the
industry, the collectors, the environmentalists, equipment manufacturers, the breeders, the scientists,
and to your fellow hobbyists, what hobbyists are doing in culture, their successes and failures, and
how they think and feel about this aspect of the hobby. This will help greatly in developing a broad
understanding of the hobby from the hobbyists point of view.
So I have questionnaire that I would very much like for hobbyists engaged in the culture of marine
organisms, at any level, to answer for me. It is only 10 questions and won’t take much time. (Tell
me if you culture as a commercial breeder or scientist and I will sent those questions.) If possible I
would like to post the questionnaire on this board and have hobbyists email me the answers, but I
don’t know if that is allowed, so I would ask you to email me your email address if you would like
to participate, and I will quickly email you the questions. (This email thing is really fantastic.) My
email address is [email protected] (Note that there is an underline character between the first
and last names and that this is often lost in that blue underline that usually goes under the address.
I wish I knew that when I set it up.)
Martin A. Moe, Jr.
