Responsible Reefing Series #1- Unsuitable Species

[SPC]

I would like to interject this about L/R if I may, this is not the first time I have seen this, just the most recent. Yesterday while visiting my LFS I was told that they had gotten some new L/R in and I noticed it was still in the shipping buckets. 100 lbs of Fiji and 100 lbs of Fla aquacultured rock. I opened one bucket of each and it was amazing the difference between the two. The Fiji rock had plenty of coraline but that was all I could see that would be considered living. The Fla rock on the other hand was covered with sponges, coral, plants, molluscs, etc... The Fiji rock was cheaper in price and therefore the LFS said they expected it to sell first.
My question is, was this Fiji rock also full of life when it was first collected? If so, why import something that cannot be kept alive long enough to reach the retailer. The owner of the LFS said when I asked him this question "Fiji rock never compared to the old Fla rock, it has never been very good". Logic tells me that the shorter the distance (time) from collection to retailer, the more life will survive. Does it really matter how ethically the rock is harvested in Fiji when this distance(time) factor is considered?
Steve

 

[JeremyR]

SPC: The fiji live rock you saw was "premium grade" which means walt smith or whoever strips EVERYTHING off the rock, powerwashes it, and then puts it in his lame drip tray system to "cure" it before shipping it stateside. There is no styro box, there is no wet paper.. just rock piled in a cardboard box. Since there is no protection, there is heavy secondary dieoff. Why people order this is beyond me.

The proper type of fiji rock to order is called "raw" or "fiji plant". It is not scrubbed or powerwashed or put in the stupid drip trays, it is immediately shipped as is. It also has no protection in shipping, but the macro algae on fiji rock is so heavy that it actually keeps the rock wet, and you get preservation of many more forms of life.

FWIW, I sell fiji & florida for the same prices.. but I cannot for the life of me get people to buy the florida. It's too dense, and not as pretty coralline wise (boy, was the old florida nice!!) and just sits in my vats.

 

[SPC]

Jeremy, I will have to say that I have never seen this raw or plant Fiji rock before, would you say it has as much life as the Fla rock?
Steve

 

[JeremyR]

It doesn't have as many crabs and stuff.. but yeah, you can get alot of stuff growing off it.. and it's not temperate stuff. I've never had anyone tell me they thought gulf aquarock was nicer than fiji raw. Keys aquacultured rock is starting to show up a little more, and once it's been down long enough it will be a sweet product probably.. but will still suffer from too dense syndrome.

 

[naesco]

Mary
Taiwan raised fish
If definition is necessary define it. One inch fish if that is what is necessary to survive the 10 hour flight here. They arrive with a permit and if some government inspector cares he can easily check to see that they are 'baby' whatever fish.
If an importer fudges or an exporter lies they suffer the consequences just like any other business people who want to risk their business on phoney export/import deals. As an importer would you risk your business? Obviously not.
Both parties better take care of the details just like any other importer or exporter of product.

Jeremy it is good to hear that someone is having some success with goniporia. And there are the odd Moorish Idol that survives for a couple of years as well
This list deals with obligate feeders. Right now goni are imported and sold by LFS knowing that they will not survive.
That is why they and dendronepthya should be on the list.
Maybe one day the key to successful keeping of these corals may be discovered but until than they should be on the list.

It is too bad we can't get some of the stoneys from the Caribbean. Had we a better attitude to collecting and importing these corals a total ban may have been avoided.
I repeat unless we begin to do something we will lose everything.

 

[SPC]

So, anymore discussion on this topic? I think the list that Wayne was nice enough to give us is valid. Should we narrow it down and discuss certain aspects of it?
Steve

 

[tazdevil]

OK, I've not followed the entire thread, but, I must question mary on this one: <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

WILD LIVE ROCK- This can be collected in a sustainable manner, as it is a renewable resource.

How can that be? Once your remove the wild live rock, its gone. Yes, you can place rock to "replace" it, but, it won't be the same.

 

[JeremyR]

There has actually been info put out about the amount of rock in existance in a place like fiji (billions of pounds) and the amount of annual production from storms breaking stuff off the reef etc... I think TRA may have even discussed this. The gist is, it's not "rock", it's something that is created by a natural process, broken off in storms.. on a continuous basis. So it is renewable.

 

[Anonymous]

What he said. The "rock" is simply old coral. There is sustainable harvest and I think that is what should be stressed, along with the don't import the difficult species. It would have to be an area kind of thing though. What is sustainable in one area isn't necessarily sustainable in another.

Powder blue tang, with flame suit on, I have one. I posted several months ago about a license for hard to keep species and basically got told I was an idiot. It was during the Sen. Hill goings on in Australia. I educated myself as to the requirements for keeping this beautiful fish, so far so good. The fish has grown 1/2" in the last month or so. That being said, I am of the opinion that most of these fish die due to handling problems from the shippers.

I support not collecting/shipping/importing many species. I would have to defer to those more knowledgable about fish. The mortality after purchase is a hard thing to quantify, so I think we should focus on getting them to the LFS in good shape. If they get there healthy less would die at home.

How are we to find out the requirements of these banned species? Many species are being studied, but many more aren't. I would suspect that most of the progress made is not from the "scientific" community, but from the "hobbiest". Would you have to have a marine biology degree, or what? Kind of rambling so I'll stop.

Thanks for being here Mary!

 

[tazdevil]

I agree, however, there remains one major problem: What is "sustainable" in removal of LR from reefs? And how do you determine a proper rate of removal for any givin reef? Even though LR that is cultured is not quite as "pretty" etc., If all wild LR removal was banned, then that would be the only LR available, and hobbyists would have no choice but to buy that. Hence, the industry would go through a change, but, I don't think would end reefkeeping as a whole. It may strengthen it, as people would see the efforts brought forth by hobbyists to protect the natural environment, and would be less apt to banning our hobby.

 

[naesco]

So Mary
As Steve mentioned where do we go from here?
This thread attempts to deal with unsuitable species which for the most part is the same list the AMDA uses.
I read the sites and references you provided in your post and I noticed that one of the rules is thou shalt not import a fish which is unsuitable to keep.
I am interested in moving forward.
Thank you

 

[naesco]

Mary I forgot to add.
Don't be disappointed with the lack of discussion on this topic and the list I generated. It is pretty difficult to oppose this as most experienced reefers are either not familiar with some of the species (some of the butterflys) because they already are not imported, have experience (death) pencial wrasse, clown sweeetlips or through education didn't even bother trying (Moorish Idol).
I think the contention may be the list of fish that you should not keep because they do not ship well enough to survive in our tanks.
IMP before we head there I would like to know what we should do with List 1. Your call moderator.

 

[MaryHM]

Sorry it took me so long to respond, but I've been really busy.

tazdevil- Live rock is just as renewable as anything else out on the reef. The Fijian Fisheries Minister is working on a memo about that, and I'll post it as soon as I get it.

What we need to do now is take this list and determine exactly why each animal should be included. Remember, there needs to be a scientifically documented reason to keep it on the list- not just because your grandma's brother's cousin killed his

I will freely admit that I am not up to par on my long term fish keeping skills, as I currently deal 95% corals. So I'll need you guys to spew forth and give me some opinions.

Let's start with the first two groups from the list naesco posted:

BLENNIES
Blenniidae aspidontus Mimic
Exallias brevis short bodied
Plagiotremus Mimic

SHRIMPFISH
Centriscidae aeoliscus & C. centriscus

Please post the reasons why you think these animals were included. Once we pinpoint the reasons, we can then move on to the next section.

 

[naesco]

I have not keep these fish but according to Tullock the reason they are on the list is that the mimic blennies feeds by darting out and tearing bits of flesh from other fishes.
The exallias brevis short- bodied blenny feeds on stony-coral polyps or other sessile invertebrates and will starve rather than accept an unfamiliear food.
Shrimpfish are tiny and spend their lives hanging from the spines of sea urchins and require minuscule live foods to survive.
Now I know why I have never seen them in the trade. Are they imported or even available for sale?

 

[MaryHM]

I have seen shrimpfish, but I'm not familiar with the blennies. Chime in industry guys- are you seeing these animals regularly on other wholesaler's lists?? (And to keep james from having a coronary, don't mention the wholesaler's name if you have!!)

 

[JeremyR]

Exallias brevis is imported off and on.. obligate SPS eater. I know someone who purchased one recently from a store, was told it was a type of algae blenny, and he put it in his SPS!! tank with disastrous results.

 

[jamesw]

<Gasp!> Ok, I'm feeling better now...

I've got to admit Mary, I am having a blast with this new forum. It's helping me not take myself and reefs.org so seriously. That's something I needed.

Happy reefing!
James Wiseman

[ December 10, 2001: Message edited by: jamesw ]</p>

 

[farmertodd]

I'll offer a candidate of filefish (Oxymonacanthus longirostris et al) for the list.

Todd

 

[JeremyR]

I don't think I've seen the mimic blennies on lists before.. except for the occasional cleaner mimic at petco being sold as a cleaner wrasse because the bozo's didn't know what they had.

 

[MaryHM]

I've started a new thread called "Unsuitable Species List" so we can easily keep track of what we're doing and it doesn't get buried in this thread. I agree Todd, that filefish should be added and was stunned when I re-read the list and didn't see it there. Good call buddy!