Guilt in the reefing hobby

[rob s.]

Either Rob S suffers from an astounding lack of self awareness or he is freaking hilarious. It amuses me.

it was fun while it lasted but they deleted me...lol

 

[rob s.]

kind of on the fence about the jags and nfl in general due to stuff I disagree with....


But i love the kid minshew so im torn

yea hes was a bright spot in an otherwise typical season. i'm on the fence also..

 

[jasonrusso]

Very well said. I would like to see this hobby move entirely to captive bred and hopefully that happens some day. The member who posted about mortality rates during capture and shipping is right and we shouldn't be accepting of that kind of loss. I am absolutely willing to pay more for captive bred fish if it means I'm doing my part in making the hobby more humane and protective of the planet. Having said that when it comes to the disastrous effects that climate change and pollution are having on the aquatic world we might just be doing them a favor putting them into our tanks as long as we are responsible in keeping them healthy and in tanks that allow them to thrive.

Most corals are aquacultured, so that's good.


The overwhelming majority of fish are still wild caught. There are very few species that breed in captivity. Blue tangs just bred in captivity a few years ago

 

[jkr]

Nice! Do you have any other fish that you’ve kept for over a decade?

 

[gotmesalty77]

Hey all,

I was just wondering if anyone feels guilty about keeping these tropical fish in our tanks. I was just reading about how they're stunned and captured, and many of them die during the process.

I just have been feeling a little guilty about taking them from their native homes, and putting them in these restrictive tanks, what do you guys think- just wondering about other people's opinions.

My photo album in regards to my tank is labeled "glass prison". I lost a lot of fish at once a few years back and ended up quitting the hobby for like 4 years. I try to always keep in mind that if i am going to imprison these animals i AT LEAST owe it to them to provide the best possible environment. Some how the intrigue and beauty of the hobby supercedes any guilt that i seem to experience because here i am lol.

 

[jkr]

I had a regal tang for nearly a decade, I lost him along with other fish after a problem with the tank, I have just set up a RedSea max e260, very happy with it until I switched the skim pump on, I am getting excessive noise, I have tried all sorts, RedSea support has been very disappointing, impossible to talk to anybody, and it can take a week to get back to me, only for them to say “it’s okay “it is not ! Any suggestions? Jkr

 

[Karen00]

Most corals are aquacultured, so that's good.


The overwhelming majority of fish are still wild caught. There are very few species that breed in captivity. Blue tangs just bred in captivity a few years ago

I totally agree about a lot of species still being wild caught because of the difficulty breeding them. A few of my FW species hatch in FW but are washed downstream to the ocean where they live some unknown period of time before moving back to FW as juveniles. That's almost next to impossible to replicate (I'm still trying, LOL). Hopefully though the ones that can be captive bred will be embraced even if it takes more time/money to do so on behalf of the breeder. I have no problem paying more for a fish, coral, etc if it means they're coming from a sustainable solution.

 

[Reeferstin]

No guilt but i make a living killing fish so keeping a few as pets actually takes the guilt away from killing thousands of fish every year i say it as i fill the cooler ahh they Will feed this family/ group with dinner for days and i keep a healthy fish tank no guilt here

 

[Zionas]

The other day I was outside and saw a gathering of reptile owners who owned snakes and lizards taken from wild habitats in Africa and the forests of Southeast Asia. It’s far, far harder to replicate their natural habitat (for the reptiles) than it is for us to replicate the natural habitats and diets of many of the species that we keep in our reef tanks. Yet the owners of those reptiles loved their pets, did their best to care for them, and didn’t feel guilt.

 

[richarddeweerd]

Most of my fish are captive bred, don't have to struggle for food and they have a full life without any predators around them

 

[dbowman5]

i say, to myself, "do what you think is right, with what you have dominion over. if you are uncomfortable it is ok to stop and do something else. individual choice is the root of freedom, an ethical framework is the guide to growth. ethics evolve through the experiences of society. it is healthy to question. it may be presumptuous to determine the proper choice for others."

 

[Andreas' Reef]

Hey all,

I was just wondering if anyone feels guilty about keeping these tropical fish in our tanks. I was just reading about how they're stunned and captured, and many of them die during the process.

I just have been feeling a little guilty about taking them from their native homes, and putting them in these restrictive tanks, what do you guys think- just wondering about other people's opinions.

Nice Profile pic

 

[BZOFIQ]

.

I go camping and hiking and don't feel guilty about stepping on the living grass. Such is life.

As long as you do your best to provide and keep these animals healthy and alive you're doing good.

Similarly, if you keep tangs alive and healthy in 40-Breeder you're doing a lot better than those who kill tangs in 200+ gallon tanks.

 

[EMeyer]

Every fish born in the sea will be eaten by something, while still alive. None of them die peacefully in their sleep.

Fish are barely more intelligent than houseplants, and corals lack a central nervous system altogether.

I can't imagine sparing a moment of feeling guilty about either one. People are generally terrible to other human beings, collectively and individually, and we should probably focus our guilt on that rather than whether a little swimming piece of lunch gets eaten alive by crabs versus living in a box.

I think it may actually be a net negative to waste our moral and ethical energy on things like this that are ethically relatively unimportant. We only have so much energy to go around for righting the wrongs of the world, or even arguing about them. If we spend it fixating on issues without important ethical aspects it creates the illusion we've done something good and gives our conscience permission to take a break. We don't need to fight against real problem X because we've done so much good for imagined problem Y.

 

[BZOFIQ]

...

People are generally terrible to other human beings, collectively and individually, and we should probably focus our guilt on that ...

Spot on.

 

[MarkyMark_]

Most corals are aquacultured, so that's good.


The overwhelming majority of fish are still wild caught. There are very few species that breed in captivity. Blue tangs just bred in captivity a few years ago

Can you point me in a direction that backs up this claim? I have searched and haven't found any recent articles or numbers that can support this.

 

[Ike]

The reality is that this is generally a destructive hobby for nature and the environment. You can try justify it in a lot of ways, but it simply is that. Very few of these fish survive long-term in the average hobbyist's tanks. Collection of fish, especially those that tend to dive into coral heads is damaging to the reefs, the carbon footprints on fish and corals is is significant with all the overnight air shipping, fuel for boats/trucks for transport and then the power used to run our tanks. However, the hobby is far less destructive than many (most) other ways the reefs have been used.

There is nothing intrinsic about our hobby thus far. There's little benefit to the hobby in general other than to make the humans that want to look at and grow pretty stuff happy. That said, I indulge and love the hobby and do so without too much guilt as it brings me a lot of joy and I try to do my part to conserve, benefit the community and help others conserve.

I think it's important we all take a more conservationist approach or else we're not going to have a leg to stand on when the hardcore conservationists direct their attention our way.

I also feel a little guilty about my fast car that gets 12 mpg, but I try to make up for it in other ways and offset it as well ;Wacky

 

[Ike]

Can you point me in a direction that backs up this claim? I have searched and haven't found any recent articles or numbers that can support this.

You don't need an article. Go into any LFS and look around. Outside of clowns and a few other commonly captive bred species all those fish are wild caught.

 

[MarkyMark_]

You don't need an article. Go into any LFS and look around. Outside of clowns and a few other commonly captive bred species all those fish are wild caught.

I was referring the claim which I bolded in my quote, the claim that most corals are aquacultured

 

[Backreefing]

No guilt here , try to keep in mind that almost all of the animals we keep will have been pray and died of disease in the wild. Only a tiny percentage of wild fish make it to old age . And what we humans learn from these privileged animals far exceeded the loss from the wild.
I do my best to care for them. So yes they are privileged.