# Captive Bred Livestock



## UnderTheSea (Jun 2, 2008)

If you could pick one a fish, invert, coral etc. that is not currently available as captive bred, what would it be?  

And.... are you willing to pay a little $ for cultured products vs wild?


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Any centropyge  

Realistically, it would b neat to see more gobies captive raised here - I know ORA offers a lot of them, but only Reefconcept and some other place out west get ORA stock.

Any chance you'd be able to bring in their aquacultured stuff?

And yes, I would pay more for things that I know are 100% aquacultured.


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

I would be willing to pay a bit more for captive bread fish/inverts adn aquacultured corals. As for one specific animal, couldn't name one off the top of my head. There are more than what people realise that an be bred in captivity.

Here are a couple threads that are out there about captive bred species.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=324717
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=205407&hl=captive


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

Blue whale... will it fit in my tank?  I have no idea to be honest....


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

Blue Ring Octopus!!!

They are cute!! and I only heard of them for sale in the States but not in Canada 

 I wonder why!?!


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## UnderTheSea (Jun 2, 2008)

KnaveTO said:


> There are more than what people realise that can be bred in captivity.
> 
> Here are a couple threads that are out there about captive bred species.
> http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=324717
> http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=205407&hl=captive


Agreed Ross, but a lot of the species are not bred on a large scale. It would be nice if all the live stock that was considered suitable for aquariums were available from a farm. (I don't think we'll see to many farms breeding blue whales  )

Eric, here is some good info for you


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

UnderTheSea said:


> Agreed Ross, but a lot of the species are not bred on a large scale. It would be nice if all the live stock that was considered suitable for aquariums were available from a farm. (I don't think we'll see to many farms breeding blue whales  )


Yes I know. Part of the problem is that we as aquarists are cheap when it comes to livestock, but will spend big bux on equipment. Encouraging companies to breed what they can by purchasing captive bred is up to us, and that means a willingness to spend a bit more for the fish and corals we place in our tanks.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Yeah, I've seen that site before. I'd really like to get my hands on a recent Baensch paper on centropyge rearing - apparently it's quite the comprehensive paper.


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## Reef_Aquatica (Apr 3, 2009)

We probably carry the largest captive bred selection of fish, shrimps, conch, abalone, marine marco-algae (not corals) out of all the Canadian Reefing store, with 5 different captive bred suppliers we regularly source our livestock from.

There are really less than 5% of the total marine livestock that can be captive bred, the most common thing (and commercially available are):
- clownfish
- peppermint shrimps
- dottybacks
- seahorses
- neon gobies 
- mouth brooding gobies
- cardinals (banggai, pj - very little availability even if available)
- fighting conch, queen conch, abalone (mainly as a by-product from the human consumption line)
- macro-algae
- copepods, amphipods, mysid shrimps

- any others such as mandarin, marine betta, jawfish, damsel are really in the minority of available captive raised commercially.

In the current market, if you ask people whether they want captive or wild, 80% of the people would _tell_ you captive; however when presented with the choice and the price tags, for that same 80%, only 30% or less actually pursue and buy captive raised. Most are not willing to pay that 10-20% more for captive bred livestock even knowing that they are helping out wild animal.

As one of my breeder tell me it's the "documentary v.s. porn" symdrome; when you ask people what they prefer to watch, 80% prefer documentry movie, yet ...


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## UnderTheSea (Jun 2, 2008)

Hahaha  Like the " One of my breeders...."    

I agree totally with what you have written. I all too often hear the same comment, "Why would I pay $20 for the frag you are selling when the other guy is selling for $10". I explain the difference, one being just a wild colony being diced up vs cultured. It's easy for someone to bring in a shipment of wild colonies and cut them up for sale. The other takes time, dedication and $ which as a result costs the end consumer, but leaves another coral or fish in the ocean.


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

Also such corals and other marine livestock bred/cultured in captivity have a much greater probability of survival in a tank over here than something plucked out of the ocean. That extra few bucks to me is insurance.


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## ruffyruff (Dec 28, 2008)

after watching a documentry on Youtube about how the indonesian sea/ocean (whatever) is being deserted by over havesting the corals, fishes, marine life... I've committed not to buy any more from stores unless they are frags (which I m pretty sure they are aquacultured or from local reefers and again obviously they are frags off their prized coral).

I think those havesters have done enough damage in the ocean and also have harvested enough to create a large farm to reproduce. I guess this is the same theory of exploitation... its just a matter of time when the oceans are empty, and something bad happens... people will realize...

Like the O-Zone, Global Warming... whats next or what am i missing?

So at the end of the day, I rather pay more for aqua-culture because its for a good cause.

Or, I rather take a smaller piece and pay the same price =P


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

Be careful about frags, quite a few of them out there in and around the GTA are from chop-shops. That is a seller that buys harvested corals and imports them into Canada. Once they are here they are chopped up and sold as frags to buyers. This process increases their potential profit and still removes corals from the ocean. Another thing to consider, we are destroying our oceans at an alarming rate. All marine aquatic livestock are being affected. Taking some of that stock out of the oceans is preserving it for future possible re-acclimation back into the ocean once we have figured out a way to reverse what we have done. In our own little way we could be saving a piece of the ocean in our tanks that one day hopefully will be able to assist repopulating species.


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## UnderTheSea (Jun 2, 2008)

KnaveTO said:


> Be careful about frags, quite a few of them out there in and around the GTA are from chop-shops. That is a seller that buys harvested corals and imports them into Canada. Once they are here they are chopped up and sold as frags to buyers. This process increases their potential profit and still removes corals from the ocean. Another thing to consider, we are destroying our oceans at an alarming rate. All marine aquatic livestock are being affected. Taking some of that stock out of the oceans is preserving it for future possible re-acclimation back into the ocean once we have figured out a way to reverse what we have done. In our own little way we could be saving a piece of the ocean in our tanks that one day hopefully will be able to assist repopulating species.


Ross, you are correct with this paragraph. I read an article a few weeks back (might have been from science news daily) in regards to how corals that were once pretty much wiped out on a reef were re-introduced from an aquaculture facility and they are now thriving. They didn't go into detail as to why they were wiped out in the first place.

As for our company we do not sell any corals that are not cultured either in our systems or imported from another facility.


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## KnaveTO (May 13, 2007)

The October 2009 edition of Tropical Fish Hobbiest has some really interesting articles at the back of the magazine about that very thing. There is an agency called SECORE... take a look at it.


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