QUIZ:What Are The 20 Most Numerous Marine Fish In The Trade?

[John_Brandt]

Well, you've had over 12 hours to rest your brains from the last quiz. That's long enough. Time for another....

QUIZ: What Top 20 Marine Fish Are The Worldwide Leaders As Most Numerous In The Aquarium Trade??

Based on International figures of export/import from the trade. Which fish are they?

The Top 10 are listed below. Which fish, by species, are 11 through 20? You already now know 10 fish that cannot be on the list.

The answers will come on Monday night, July 7th. Give it a shot. Take some guesses, you might be surprised.....


1) Green chromis (Chromis viridis)
2) Yellow tang (Zebrasoma flavescens)
3) Ocellaris clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris)
4) Blue damselfish (Chrysiptera cyanea)
5) 3-stripe damselfish (Dascyllus aruanus)
6) Domino (3-spot) damselfish (Dascyllus trimaculatus)
7) Yellowtail damselfish (Chrysiptera parasema)
8> 4-stripe damselfish (Dascyllus melanurus)
9) Cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus)
10) Mandarinfish (Synchiropus splendidus)

 

[Anonymous]

not in order of popularity, and w/out latin...

hippo tang
snowflake moray
fiji damsel(long yellow patch on belly)
neon velvet damsel
niger trigger
picasso/huma trigger
coral beauty
flame angel
lawnmower blenny
clown trigger

 

[Anonymous]

I would certainly say banggai cardinal before clown trigger...

Vitz, you clown you...



Peace,

Chip

 

[delbeek]

What this list shows is which fish are not only most numerous on the reef but also easiest to collect and ship in large numbers in the least space.

The sad fact is that just about every fish on the the top 10 list can or has been bred and raised in captivity. The problem is that to do so in significant numbers is not economically viable given the very low price of the wild caught fish.

It may take large scale pond culture in Asia to generate the kinds of numbers and cost per fish necessary to compete.

Cleaner wrasses are not a surprise to anyone who visits wholesalers ... you see tanks filled with them. To me this is one fish who's import should be severely restricted.

Just me 2 cents worth ...

JCD

 

[dizzy]

self deleted

 

[John_Brandt]

THE ANSWERS:


11) Royal gramma (Gramma loreto)
12) Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica)
13) Blue tang (Paracanthurus hepatus)
14) Percula clownfish (Amphiprion percula)
15) Coral Beauty (Centropyge bispinosus)
16) Flame angelfish (Centropyge loriculus)
17) Scooter dragonet (Synchiropus sp.)
18> Clark's clownfish (Amphiprion clarkii)
19) Lyretail anthias (Pseudanthias squamipinnis)
20) Six-line wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)


The Big Winner: Klingsa (Sara) with 6 correct guesses, one of them in the correct ranking.

Number of participants: 3

 

[StevenPro]

I am curious as to your source for this list. It seems like it would be a very useful reference to have on hand. Could you please post a citation so I could grab a copy for myself?

 

[JennM]

Cleaner wrasses are not a surprise to anyone who visits wholesalers ... you see tanks filled with them. To me this is one fish who's import should be severely restricted.

JCD

I concur - but how would this best be done? As a retailer, I do not buy them, but that does not help the hundreds and thousands that are already inside the chain of custody. There are several species of fish and coral which I do not buy for various reasons, not the least of which is their poor survival rate. If I don't care about the welfare of the animal (which I do) at least I care enough about my customer not to sell him something that's doomed.

In a perfect world, if more retailers stopped buying, sooner or later that activity would cease on back through the line, yes? Wholesalers/importers stop buying what doesn't sell, exporters stop buying from collectors, eventually collectors stop collecting them - or am I over-simplifying it? Surely for this particular species, there will always be *some* demand, ie: from large public aquaria that can actually sustain them... what's the solution?

For what it's worth, I don't see cleaner wrasses much at my local wholesaler - but I also do not buy from there in any significant amount, nor visit there with any regularity - I go there for feeder comets (for the turtle lady -- long story!), occasionally pick up a Caribbean fish or two or a yellow tang (I stay far away from any of their PI or Indo fish....) and soon I won't be allowed to do that because they have imposed a $100 minimum purchase - I don't usually find $100 worth of stuff I'd want from them, and even if I did, they are priced out of the ball park - some of their "wholesale" prices are more than my own retail... but I digress.... the one local example of a wholesaler is not typical of what can be found in Los Angeles, I don't think. I'd venture to guess that MOST saltwater retailers do not have a major wholesale operation within striking distance, and most order from 104th street or its environs.

As I ramble -- I'd like to hear your thoughts on what the best way would be to raise awareness about this issue, and how best to tackle it.

Regards,

Jenn

 

[John_Brandt]

I am curious as to your source for this list. It seems like it would be a very useful reference to have on hand. Could you please post a citation so I could grab a copy for myself?

Steven,

Well I guess I can finally give up my source. I was going to do another quiz of the next 10, but the interest in guessing has all but died.

I did not get these fish from a list per se. They come from a massive database and I had to laboriously extract the top-rankers. I had a very good idea of which they would be (I've been in the marine fish trade for 23 years), but there were some surprises even for myself.

Before anyone starts to get critical of my quiz, know that I used a composite of data from 1995-2001. The rankings I used are from this 7 year period, and may not reflect the abundance at any given moment.

Look here; it's a fascinating way to spend hours and hours :wink:

http://www.unep-wcmc.org

 

[StevenPro]

Hey John, I had another question for you. Do these numbers take into account captive raised fishes, too? I see ocellaris are number 3 and percula's are 14. Is that including or excluding captive raised fishes?

 

[John_Brandt]

Steven,

I suspect it does not include aquacultured clownfish. But to be certain you or I should ask the question of the database manager at World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC).

A list of data sources (importers/exporters/wholesalers) that were used for the database is here: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/marine/GMAD/data.html

Anyway, it is true that great numbers of ocellaris and percula are removed from the wild in spite of the remarkable advances of aquaculturing these fish.