Your feedback is needed to help Indonesian coral farmers...

[morepunkthanewe]

I've just started a 5 month internship with the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) here in Bali, Indonesia. The purpose of my internship is to develop a guide and certification protocol for the blossoming lagoon-based coral aquaculture farms that are beginning to pop up.

Soooo, in order to maximize my impact on the coral aquaculture farms here in Indonesia, I would like to gain your feedback in regards to what you like and don't like as the end consumer. Since a brown coral will grow just the same its bright pink counterpart, I am basically looking for suggestions on particular species, color morphs, etc that you would be willing to shell out the most cashish over so that in the end we can bring you only the finest corals that Indo has to offer. If we can increase the demand for these aquacultured rarities, then hopefully we can reduce the demand for the more common wild harvested corals.

I have already been out to see some of these operations and was largely impressed with the quality that they have growing. I will be posting pics in the next few weeks to let y'all know where your corals are coming from. Also, feedback with regards to your experiences with internationally-shipped aquacultured corals would be appreciated. Things like base size and type, etc. Feel free to post pics of the corals you are most interested in.

Thanks in advance for your advice,
Colin Foord
MAC Indonesia
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For some background on myself, I have been a reef hobbyist for over 10 years, I graduated from the University of Miami with a BS in marine science and biology in 2004, studied abroad at James Cook University on the GBR in Australia in 2003 studying coral reef ecology and aquaculture. My final thesis was the development of a low-tech (uses only airpumps), hi-yield land-based coral aquaculture facility. Since graduating college I have worked as a fish and invert collector in the Florida Keys. During college I worked at a retail store (Gables Aquarium) and became well familiar with the local wholesalers, and thus I am well versed in the whole chain of custody of our beloved critters from reef to aquarium. Just wanted to get that out of the way to ensure you that I know exactly where you fellow crazy hobbyists are coming from when you are salivating over a particularly colorful ricordia or acropora morph....

 

[Anonymous]

Didn't Leng Sy's monti cap (which later became Steve Tyrees green/purple monti) start out brown..??

 

[WayneSallee]

Yep, color, multicolor, and shape.
And as far as large polyp corals go, people like corals that sway in the current.

I had one customer actually turn down a coral because it looked too fake :lol:

It was a nice looking coral, but it was to pretty for her. Of course this is not the norm.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
[email protected]

 

[morepunkthanewe]

Something to keep in mind is that a lot of corals, especially the SPS, lose their pigmentation very, very quickly once they start getting moved around and stressed. They even lose a noticeable color from the time it takes to move it from their racks to the shore (only about 50 m!), so you can imagine how much they might change before you see them in your LFS. That piece that was mentioned most likely started in the wild as it is seen now, even if it was purchased as a brown color.

This to me demonstrates a very important benefit for purchasing these aquacultured corals. By being able to trace the lineage of the coral at your LFS via a tagging system, you can be sure that even though it may not look super colorful at the point of purchase, you can expect it to re-color up once in proper lighting and water conditions. LFS owners can be certain shipment after shipment that what they got last time will be the same thing that they will get again. When it comes to wild collected stock, its much more of a crap shoot. Maybe you will get lucky and that drab coral will color up again, or more likely it will stay muted because that's what it always had been (And perhaps years and years of collecting pressure has resulted in the nicest colonies being removed long ago). These coral farmers are going out of their way (Literally travelling days and days by boat to find prime broodstock) to culture only the nicest morphs, because in the end that's what will make them the most money. Farmers have even abandoned cetain species and morphs, that, while very colorful while in Bali, don't end up maintaining their color at all in our home aquariums. Obviously the consumers' feedback does get back to them via the lack of market demand.

Cheers,
Colin

 

[dizzy]

Colin,
While what you are saying certainly makes sense, there is still another side of the coin. Many people just don't want to spend the bucks to put in a system that keeps sps corals colorful. I'd like to see more production of nice blastos and acans. Also nice lps like E. divisa and C. jardinei. With all the places now attempting to do frags there could easily be an overproduction of sps corals, which would lead to disappointment of those hoping to cash in. I think coral farming will work better if not too many people try to get involved.
Mitch

 

[mark@mac]

Mitch,

Good point!

I certainly don't want to downplay the importance of aquaculture; or MAC, however, I have seen TOO MANY villagers dismayed, disillusioned and disappointed by the WELL INTENTIONED EFFORTS of FOREIGN "helpers" TRYING to "help" them with alternative livelihoods.....

You raise a good point with the potential saturation of the aquacultured sps market.... There are lots of lps that are in high demand as well....
The south Pacific is already producing so much; AND, these producers have had serious problems meeting/or even coming close to the mortality requirements for MAC certification even with AQUACULTURED sps frags!

M

 

[morepunkthanewe]

Those are quite good points indeed. As Mark indicated, there is already some pretty fierce undercutting going on here whan it comes to aquacultured corals, so there is a fine line between meeting the demand and having a surplus resulting in everyone suffering. From what I hear, it is too often that the "flavor of the month" coral is wild-harvested, fragged, grown out a little, and then the market becomes overly saturated, which is not sustainable or responsible obviously. This is why I need your help in regards to which species are perhaps too tricky for domestic farmers to meet the market demand, and to widen the species diversity here such that the farmers aren't all focused on the same 15 varieties.

While Acropora are indeed the dominant species being cultured (and the majority of these are SUPERBLY colored), I was quite surprised to see a large number of exceptional Favites, Euphyllia, etc on the tables. As soon as my underwater housing arrives, I will be sure to begin posting pictures of these operations.

Blastomussa and Acanthastrea are indeed near the top of my list as candidates for future aquaculture emphasis...

I will be travelling to North Bali shortly to some sites where more soft coral and LPS aquaculture is taking place. I'll report back what I find there...