Jay and I have been chatting about this. The places that flames came from into Hawaii almost non used cyanide. Where as where they are coming from now do use them. Something about the islands near HI. I had two flames die with in the past few months while in QT and no other fish die. And one of the sure thing that is a tell tell, is the going in circles before dying. Also two local shops both reported the same deaths. One shop had 6 die within a couple of weeks. I asked the guy from the shop where the 6 died. (he didn't even know about cyanide catching) I asked how he saw them die. He described what I posted above. That is cyanide.
Sadly something about the places that flames came from into HI that made it to a LFS and a reefers tank without the mortality rate that we are seeing now.
I could say some are issues of other diseases or QT. But I got plenty of angles through QT without a death incident. My QT process is down to the t. Recently got 11 fish through one setting in a 60 gal tank. 2 were angles. A emperor and a coral beauty.
Agreed to not say all flames are a cyanide issue. But fact remains is had been a issue for the past few years from what I read from even medics here on this forum.
I mean that is just conjecture with no actual proof. You can still get flame angels that have transited through Hawaii. As mentioned earlier in this thread, wholesalers in Hawaii still exist. In addition, the vast majority of flame angels that skip Hawaii nowadays is the Marshall Islands. Guess where a huge chunk of flame angels that were sold through Hawaii before the trade? The Marshall Islands. The ban simply rerouted this supply chain.
Higher death rates may just be attributed to the lack of an additional recovery step in the supply chain. It takes about 6 hours of flight time to go from Marshall Islands to Hawaii. Another ~5-6 hours to get to California. In the past the fish would split this journey with a recovery step. Now, they have to basically make it all the way through to the mainland... with hopes that the SINGLE flight that flies to Hawaii lines up nicely with a flight that goes to somewhere in the mainland.
Baseless statements claiming that these fisheries use cyanide with no actual proof will just make this hobby look even worse than it is.
Also, if you still do believe the current sourcing of flame angels are somehow from a "different" place now... then just cough up the extra bucks and get flame angels from a known locality. There are plenty of vendors that advertise Christmas Island or Marshall Island caught flame angels instead of a vague "Central Pacific" label. To add to that - you'd be hard pressed to name a Central Pacific country that has vast flame angel collection that has rampant cyanide use. To put it broadly, Central Pacific basically composes of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Flame angel collection from Melanesia is quite sparse (Fiji and Solomons). Same goes for Polynesia (Tonga). Most comes from Micronesia (which includes Marshall Islands and "Christmas Island"). At a certain point we can't just keep blaming cyanide for every fish that die on us.
To press the point further...
Quality Marine, one of the largest wholesaler of marine fish in the USA which nearly all LFS that deal with reef fish have an account with... the majority of their flame angel listings are labeled as "Central Pacific" and if the LFS wants to cough up the extra money they can buy from the ones labeled "KWA" which is short for Kwajalein, Marshall Islands. There are only a small handful of aquarium exporters based there in a tiny atoll... you'd have a very hard time hiding something as destructive as cyanide fishing there. Also, Kwajalein is essentially a US military base...
Next time if you are so paranoid, I would urge you to just cough up the extra money and ask your LFS to just add on a flame from a named area next time... or just buy from a vendor who labels the specific country it is from.
btw, does the permits only apply to west Hawaii because I’m not on the big island
