Photo of Søren Hansen and clown fish
Image: Jennifer Muscato Hansen
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Tropical fish tanks in restaurants, hospitals and homes evoke feelings of tranquility and beauty. They even lower stress levels prior to medical procedures and encourage Alzheimer's patients to eat sufficiently. But what's good for humans may be bad for the sea.
Most tropical fish sold in pet stores come from reefs in Indonesia and the Philippines, where fishermen stun the colorful dwellers with squirts of sodium cyanide. The potent nerve toxin causes the fish to float up out of the reefs so they can be easily scooped up, but it can also injure or kill them as well as trigger coral bleaching.
"What I find ironic is that people love the ocean. They want to keep a slice of it in their living room. But they're killing the coral reefs," says Søren Hansen a co-founder of Sea and Reef Aquaculture, LLC, in Franklin, Me., one of only a handful of tropical fish farmers in the U.S.
Why not breed the saltwater fish on farms everywhere? Most fish in freshwater tanks—which are much more common, less expensive and easier to maintain—are indeed farm-raised. But breeding saltwater fish in an industrial aquaculture facility requires re-creating the coral reef ecosystem, a technology that is just moving out of its infancy.
Improvement is urgently needed. Tropical fish sales are estimated at $200 million to $300 million a year worldwide. The U.S. imports about 11 million of the fish annually, out of 20 million sold globally. Estimates suggest that 70 to 90 percent of captured fish die before they ever reach a tank, and more perish within their first six months in captivity. "It's an overlooked industry," says Frank Baensch, a tropical fish farmer in Honolulu, adding that "If I wanted to, I could bring in species on the Red List [of endangered species] and nobody would know."
The demand for tropical fish soared in 2004, when Finding Nemo—an animated movie about father and son clown fish, Marlin and Nemo—prompted a buying frenzy. "Every kid wanted a Nemo and Dory [a regal tang that also stars in the movie] in their fish tank," recalls Andrew Rhyne, a marine biologist at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I.. No one thought to measure the change in the number of wild-caught fish, Rhyne says. But clown fish sales at the world's largest fish hatchery—Ocean, Reefs & Aquariums in Fort Pierce, Fla.—jumped 40 percent.
Retailers are preparing for another sales spike this fall, when Finding Nemo 3-D will be released.
Luckily, clown fish are among the few tropical fish that breed in captivity. Like most demersal fish—those that spawn on hard surfaces—parents stick around to care for their young. Demersal larvae also emerge as fully formed miniature fish, making them relatively self-sufficient. Hobbyists have been breeding clown fish by trial and error for decades. These days, Hansen says, clown fish account for about 80 percent of all tropical fish sales.
Yet almost all of the other 1,500 or more species of tropical fish sold in stores are caught live in the ocean. That is because farmers have had much more limited success in breeding pelagic fish, which account for 90 percent of all tropical species. Pelagic fish spawn and then abandon their young. Larvae lack mouths, eyes and guts and are so fragile that colliding with an air bubble could kill them.
A key challenge has been figuring out what to feed young saltwater fish. Unlike freshwater tank fish, which readily devour processed flake food, tropical fish prefer to eat their meal while it is still flapping. Luckily, breeders found that many demersal fish eat freshwater rotifers—microscopic animals that clone themselves every 24 hours and require little space. The demersal fish fare even better when the rotifers are soaked in nutrient-rich fats and proteins found in the sea.
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20 Comments
Add CommentSadly, I don't think that people who like to keep animals in a little contianer their whole lives care about how those animals are obtained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly, I don't think that people who like to keep animals in a little container their whole lives care about how those animals are obtained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe use of cyanide for saltwater fish collection is rejected by people in the hobby, like myself. Usually, the fish die shortly after taking them home and that is good reason not to buy fish caught that way from the buyer's point of view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can see here that buying cyanided fish is strongly recommended against by experts: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/hcnfaqs.htm
payitfwd: Strawmen so soon? We don't keep them in "little" containers. Saltwater aquaria are complicated affairs on which one needs to spend thousands of dollars. One doesn't act stingily with regard to space or other matters. Learning a little about the hobby is a good idea before criticizing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a fish tank and care about how they are treated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur fish are spoiled rotten when is comes to fish foods.
I also think they enjoy their tank, it's safe, lots of tasty foods, and a cat that loves to watch them. The fish DO interact with her in a playful way everyday. You need to get a tank to understand and see for yourself, that all fish and pets have their unique personalities and when they feel safe seem to like people. Our fish like most music and seem to watch the digital TV when they hang out at the end of the tank, the only thing there is the TV.
Most fish do have a big tank and a good life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are right on the money - every single individual I know in the trade is the same way. We have been screaming from over a decade about it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI raise corals as well, every one started as a frag of a frag, three or four generations in captivity and now has been given as frags to dozens of others.
I find it amazing that people are mystified by such easily housed and rapidly reproducing species. Instead of bashing the hobbyist - bash the box house style pet stores. The hobbyist is the best scientific resource researchers have.
Keep up the good work and the happy tank
What this article is lacking is a list of the least harmful and most often tank bred salt water species. A list that we can feel more comfortable with. Any suggestions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know quite a bit about the hobby. I think these criticisms are fair and accurate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny fish surviving the capture, transport, cumulative shock and other stresses is indeed lucky. Your description of plush digs in a small glass container sounds like a minimum security prison. Even 500 gallons is a drop compared to free life on a reef. Aquarium hobbyists must be willing to subjugate WILDlife to the domestic pleasures they desire in their own not-so-wild lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom a commercial aquaculture point of view, it is possible to produce almost all of the species sold for marine aquariums. The technology for breeding and larval rearing are known. However, the market niche for most species is too small to be useful for a commercial aquaculture venture. A useful production run would be 10,000 or more of any given species and the market in the US may only be less than 500/Mo for almost all species except common things like clown fish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese very small market niches make for excellent "garage" business opportunities providing some income to someone with talent at larval rearing. It is possible to make enough income to cover lots of fancy equipment and deduct all your equipment and instrumentation cost against income on you taxes. However, you won't get rich and you may not make minimum wage, but you can learn a lot and have a lot of fun. Just target a species that no one else is doing and you will be the king in a little market. Once you have worked out the production details, no rational person would even try to compete.
This article was a "book report" of random issues within the aquarium trade gleaned from google searches and non experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese types of writers are getting common nowdays. They don't get wet though.
Researching the most convenient things and playing off a selective few " experts" who would talk....Gupta missed the opportunity to tell the real story:]
We all know in the trade that 90% of all the cultured fishes are clownfishes...a fish only in trouble if the home-base anemones are taken. Thanks to cultured clownfish, more wild anemones are taken then can be sustained in nature....especially the carpets.
Therefore, the culture of anemones has had a net-negative impact on the environment....not a plus.
Net training of cyanide fishers was undertaken by commercial fish collectors successfully in the 80's. So called green environmental non profit groups tried to take over this positive reform movement and scuttled it. They squandered millions and trained few.
I challenge the writer to continue the research on the aquarium trade and go deeper then scratching the surface.
Steve
If the culture of marine aquarium fishes including the fishes actually caught with cyanide, the argument would carry at least some credibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe angelfishes, butterflys, tangs, triggers, wrasses etc. that actually carry the aquarium trade are not cultured.
Damaging the reefs thru cyanide collection should have been stopped, 20 years ago.
But the infusion of grant money into the equation shunted the reform movement into the arms of "green organizations" better at writing grant proposals then working effectively with poor cyanide fisherman.
After 15 years and about 20 million dollars of squandering this windfall of cash and goodwill, these groups abandoned "the cause" and left the trade jaded and no longer believing in reform.
Honest, hands on, village oriented trainers and funders have never gotten together on this as the more "professional, top-down" approaches were favored and funded.
Culturing designer clownfishes ie. 90% perculas and ocellaris removes none of the stresses and the pressures on the reefs caused by the real list of relevant fishes that comprise the trade.
This mis-identification and mis representation of the probem is unforunate.
The reform needed is not adressed in the article at all.
Steve
Currently, the culture of clownfish is
This article overlooks the obvious concerning this subject. As a resident of Hawaii I have seen first hand the horrible practice of reef robbing that is decimating the population of rare species in our reefs. The problem is not so much the use of poison, as that practice here could get one abandoned 20 miles off shore in shark infested water by a horde of angry natives, but the systematic pillaging of care-less people interested only in profit. I have personally witnessed these greed mongers traveling around the island with horse trailers not carrying horses, but fish tanks with compressors and generators to keep the fish alive. They go out a night using GPS to attack reefs in a systematic approach using computers and with often illegal fishing gear grab everything they see. They take everything because they know the unwanted fish can be used to feed the more valuable ones.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe end result of this rarely enforced and semi-legal practice is the loss of 90% of the reefs inhabitants in many locations throughout the islands accessible my man. There are many boats used for the same practice for an approach by sea which is just as invasive.
Sorry, but I have do disagree that the hobby of salt water aquariums is anything less then an abomination of international concern. Laws should be enacted that abolish the practice and make it illegal to keep any fish that cannot breed in captivity and prevent anyone from taking fish from the reefs for profit.
As for those that want to call me a tree hugging environmentalist wacko, save your breath, I freely admit I am one.
Hawaii has all the regulatory agencies it needs to police and control fish collecting if needed. It also has public aquariums, universities more marinelife oriented people per square foot and more attention focused on its coastline activities as any in the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor sure you have been to the town halls, the forums and the hearing held there so often on the aquarium trade, right?
I agree with your last sentence though.
Apparently you don't have a clue either. Oahu (where most of the population and the regulators live) is already a lost cause proving that man's greed trumps even the regulators there. Where I live, on the Big Island, I have never seen anyone enforcing any rules on taking fish from the reefs in the 20 years I have lived on this island. You are a classic example of someone who thinks they know it all but in reality are just turning a blind eye to the spoiled environment you live in and helped create.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Damaging the reefs thru cyanide collection should have been stopped, 20 years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the infusion of grant money into the equation shunted the reform movement into the arms of "green organizations" better at writing grant proposals then working effectively with poor cyanide fisherman.
After 15 years and about 20 million dollars of squandering this windfall of cash and goodwill, these groups abandoned "the cause" and left the trade jaded and no longer believing in reform."
This is just the kind of blind eye nonsense that is at the root of the problem in the first place. People who think like you are the ones who exploit the reefs for profit and then blame the environmentalists for not doing anything about it. You hate environmentalists because they are right, not wrong, and you have some preconceived idea that your greed can do no harm because your political affiliation says so, not common sense.
Why this web site attracts so many anti-environmental wackos is pretty obvious, these people are just trying to cope with their own guilt by spreading lies and bad science.
The fact is that people like you is what is wrong with the industry, not the people trying to educate the masses on why people like you really suck.
"Environmental groups" have partnered with the aquarium trade and ran thru a lot of money doing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe WWF , Marine Aquarium Council, Packard Foundation all funded and failed for over a decade to "make a difference" except to turn people off to reform with their expensive, unworkable and village unfriendly approaches to social development as it interfaces with sustainability issues.
Despite their incompetence and inability to work well in another culture, they got paid every month.
The poor fishers were told a "higher market" would welcome them and pay them more and as the funding finally ran out and was not renewed, The phoney eco-reformers moved on to mishandle other issues.
The obsession with funding for the self, the perks, the plane rides, the per diems, the career points generally intoxicate many environmental folks to the point that they mishandle their primary mission.
This mal-practice produces a net negative and sends people back to destructive fishing with renewed vigor.
This played out over the years for thousands to witness.
The website Reefs.org pretty much chonicled the entire history of this environmental movement of "funding of failure" in the aquarium trade."
Steve
PCC: Post-larval Capture and Culture, a sustainable collection...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisECOCEAN (http://www.ecocean.fr/en/) is a french environnemental technology company specializing in marine Post-larvae Capture and Culture (PCC), rearing for the aquarium trade and the repopulation.
I invite you to read this article:
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=3906&goback=.gde_3193670_member_103361492
Best,
Rémy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, it was a nice effort.
"This means the cost of a single fish to the hobbyist is at least ten to twelve times that first paid to the fisherman ."
The issues impeding the progress of this kind of fish farming have been so great that their project is more of an endless research project for now then any alternative......according to the article.
They have been trying to break thru for a long time now...and I wish them well.
Steve