Public Aquariums vs. Private Hobbyists

[morepunkthanewe]

With all this debate about the impact of the reef hobby on the reefs, I was wondering how the collection for public aquariums differs much. One might say that public aquariums are educational to visitors. Aren't home aquariums educational to their owners and visitors? Some might say that public aquariums are more responsible because they employ marine biologists. Well as a marine biology student I can attest to the fact that most marine biologists don't know a lick about keeping fish and corals alive. The professors at my school continually come to me to ask questions about keeping specimens alive when they need to set up experiments. I know from experience that one respectable aquarium lost a whole shipment of Caribean corals due to improper handling (THey shipped them dry...). This was after an arduous process of just getting the proper permits to collect them.
Something to think about is that we private hobbyists pay for each and every animal we add to our tanks, and we aren't frivolous. We will only buy what we know we can keep alive, or else we are throwing our money away (and we have all thrown our money away this way a few times). Public aquariums recieve tax dollars in addition to ticket sales, and still don't make much of a profit. With the large chain of command, it seems that most of that money is lost in the beaurocracy. It seems to me that the people taking care of the tanks have a lot less incentive to keep these animals alive when they know that they will always be replaced with new ones, ones they don't have to buy. Like pet store employees, those that take care of tanks at a public aquarium don't make much money, yet most have a college degree.
Also, while public aquariums are involved with some research, it isn't usually too intensive, especially with reef animals. I think that without the advances done by private aquarists, we would still be seeing plastic coral replicas in public aquariums. Unfortunately, most public aquariums only have one small (<1000 gallons) tank.
I guess what I'm getting at is that in the public eye , public aquariums are all positive and are beneficial to everyone in the community (and I agree), but the private hobby has a "plundering of the wild" stigma attached to it. But is there really all that much different between us. Granted the private hobby is probably responsible for more collection from the wild, but either way you look at it, the ethical and environmental issues are the same. I would love to here what other people think, or hear from those that have experience with public aquariums.

------and now I prepare to be blasted--------

 

[tazdevil]

Part of this issue is the private sector is the easiest for them to attack-little money for defense, no lobbyists etc. We all agree(?) that the hobby probably does not affect the reefs as bad as blasting for limestone etc. The problem is that it does affect the reefs, and hobbyists that go into this uninformed, causing a tank disaster or two, then giving up, make the rest look bad. Can't entirely blame those hobbyists either, as an LFS that started them out with bad/outdated/or no information lit the match so to say. No flaming here, but since you asked to get blasted, here you go:

and

there, that should do.

 

[danmhippo]

I think we shouldn't overlook the overall purchasing power of the hobbist. How much $$ is flowing into LFS and wholesalers, IMHO, should be far greater then $$ that the public aquarium spent. Another wave of purchasing power would probably from research institutions. If there is enough demand from the home segment for a certain species of coral/fish, ethical issue aside, there will be people supplying them. It is only if there is an education channel setup to educate the general public that we "may" be able to see a decline on the "shouldn't be caught" creatures.

 

[IBJJ]

I think a vast majority of our tanks look many times better than alot of the public tanks I've seen. Not to mention healthier specimens.

 

[davelin315]

I agree to a certain extent that hobbyists normally maintain better looking tanks than some aquariums. After having gone to the Shedd Aquarium many times in my life, I can honestly say that it's embarrassing how many parasitic anemones and how overgrown many of their tanks are with nuisance algaes. However, they do house a ton of specimens, and to their credit, most of them look healthy. HOwever, presentation is important.

 

[Mouse]

All of the public aquariums i have ever been to upset me, except for sea world. Which Baby Shamu are they on now 2, 3 or is it 4. Damn things all look the same to me, oh never mind.

 

[chris_h]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by davelin315:
<strong>I agree to a certain extent that hobbyists normally maintain better looking tanks than some aquariums. After having gone to the Shedd Aquarium many times in my life, I can honestly say that it's embarrassing how many parasitic anemones and how overgrown many of their tanks are with nuisance algaes. However, they do house a ton of specimens, and to their credit, most of them look healthy. HOwever, presentation is important.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I have never heard of parasitic anemones. What are they? I want some.

And now lets talk about the algea. If the species they are trying to keep are healthy then why does algea matter? THe goal is to keep the animals healthy, not to keep the tank free of algea. I would never go out of my way to control algea unless it was damaging my corals.

What ever happened to the whole diversity thing? Do algea or aipstia anemones not count as diversity anymore? I have never seen aipstia or algea or non-parasitic flatworms harm anything. People just hate them becouse they have been told to. Some pet shops sell aipstia and hair algea, and people buy them and enjoy them. Why cant a person enjoy the pretty little anemones, the neat orange bugs, or the wierd green plants without being ridiculed?

My tanks contain orange flatworms, some algea, and some aipstia. I enjoy them. The flatworms and algea are a good food source to the fish, and my corals are still thriving. The aipstia are interesting and seem to filter the water for me. Are we only interested in keeping the species that cannot easily thrive in aquarims? Do we hate aipstia and algea becouse they are not challenging. If aipstia were slow growing or hard to keep alive would people brag about keeping them?

 

[nm]

The hobbyist have that plundering the wild stigma for a reason. However the public aquarium should also if its not taking every precaution to keep spspecimen alive. (coral shipped dry ).
We should all take a good look at lps, sometime its very discouraging,,some still shipping species on a regular basis that don't do well. Example Gonipora. To add insult to injury; just recently at my lfs I saw a canary yellow gonipora and a canary yellow leather finger coral. The owner place them in his show tank, they are not doing well. Now we have died coral--rediculous!!

 

[slimy]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by chris_h:
<strong>What ever happened to the whole diversity thing? Do algea or aipstia anemones not count as diversity anymore? I have never seen aipstia or algea or non-parasitic flatworms harm anything
</strong><hr></blockquote>

I have seen 2 of my friend's tanks detroyed by aipstia and algea. He thought they were fine two. He only had 3 aipstia, after all. 6 months later, there are no less than 200(!) in his 35 gallon tank. They have killed nearly all of his corals. The ones that weren't killed, mostly polyps and open brains, are half smothered in algea, and stand little chance of survival. Diversity is good, but one of the limitations of a tank is that creatures that spread rapidly can easilly destroy tanks.

So no: people don't hate aipstia, flatworms and algea because they aren't difficult to keep. They hate them because they are increadibly destructive.

 

[sharkdude]

Just for the record, the shipping method of choice for some sps is 'dry' with nothing more than wet newspaper. Some corals shipped submerged will smother in mucus and deprived oxygen.

I think some of the debate stems from orders of magnitude of difference, ie ther are maybe a couple thousand public aquaria in the US with millions of hobbyists? cummulative affects as well as a highly visable and easy scapegoat with hobbyists (as someone else mentioned above)

 

[stilmas]

Chris_h, I like your response. I've often wondered that myself. There is nothing wrong with keeping what you like and are happy and successful with.

 

[chris_h]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by slimy:
<strong>

I have seen 2 of my friend's tanks detroyed by aipstia and algea. He thought they were fine two. He only had 3 aipstia, after all. 6 months later, there are no less than 200(!) in his 35 gallon tank. They have killed nearly all of his corals. The ones that weren't killed, mostly polyps and open brains, are half smothered in algea, and stand little chance of survival. Diversity is good, but one of the limitations of a tank is that creatures that spread rapidly can easilly destroy tanks.

So no: people don't hate aipstia, flatworms and algea because they aren't difficult to keep. They hate them because they are increadibly destructive.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I doubt the algea or whatever a parasitic anemone is have grown to a point to harm there corals or fish in the public aquarium.

And I think that in an aquarium in which aipstia and algea grow that fast, there is something else wrong. I predict the corals were unhealthy corals so they were unable to outcompet with them. In my tank, there is a 1/2 inch area around each coral were the algea has been killed by the corals mucus, and when corals are touched by aipstia they either kill the aipstia or appear unaffected. Back when I tried to control aipstia, I would place a mushroom polyp on the anemones to kill them

.

 

[loosbrew]

hmmmm, seems someone needs a lesson in the biodiversity of natural reefs and other areas of the sea bed that house many of the favites, goniopora, euphylia, tubastrea etc corals that we keep. ive read accounts and seen pictures of feilds of gonioporas in the muckiest and algea riddin waters, as well as pics of mandarin gobies living off the coast of hong kong living in tires and old gas cans. i used to have a FO tank that housed a 7 inch hippo tang(bought when it was 1/2 inch.) a 6 inch blue throat trigger and a cleaner wrasse. the tank was one big algea farm, with a DSB and a plenum,( of all things) and all it had for "filtration" was a few powerheads. i fed heavily, rarely did water changes, and still managed to spawn larval jelly fish from the sand bed every month and keep HLLE from my hippo tang and the cleaner wrasse would eat all prepared foods, because there was no ich. my point you ask? well, the algea had cleaned the water so well, the dirty sand bed had kept the nitrates down, the fauna that fed off of the algae fed the wrasse for weeks while she didnt take any prepared foods, and this lasted until it reached the point where i didnt feel comfortable housing these large friends of mine in such a small tank. so i gave them to someone with a much larger setup.


natural is best..if a tank crashes because algea, there was something else wrong. if you dont know how to handle the environment in which you attempt to create, dont bother, its not easy nor is it pretty at times, but neither was earth when it was a ball of slime.

loosbrew