Conservation Thread

[Anonymous]

And yet I've not made squat yet.

I hear the Sump is a brilliant place to gather some quick posts :lol:

 

[mark@mac]

Dave,

I don't think your post is off topic. These are some of the solutions we need to employ to help reduce pressure from the reefs and strengthen this industry. I think the time is coming for more larval rearing in aquaculture. Sounds like you've got some great experience!

Mark

 

[JeremyR]

I would pay extra for certified larval reared fish.

 

[mark@mac]

STeve,

There are catch limits on these fish. Areas like Bohol and Camotes can only "certify" a few of these highly desireable fish each year.....

Eric,

Where are the blueface and blue tangs coming from? Marcilla, Tawi Tawi or Cayagancillo? HOw many certified blue tangs did get?

There were many problems with the certification in these locations and in fact certification was competely dependant upon them resolving many non-compliances within a particular timeframe. Finally, as of last fall, MAMTI management decided to quit pumping money into both Tawi Tawi and Cayagancillo and gave up much to my dissappointment. I thought this was wrong as the fishers DID NOT have enough training and experience. Last year they did not even want to pack and ship fish without a MAC trainer being present. THEY WERE NOT COMFORTABLE DOING SO because of their poor shipment history. There are other serious issues with the economics of shipping FROM these places as they are far from any majoy export city. They are great fisheries but they come with many challenges.

To my knowledge only two cites in Bohol, and one in Camotes, and maybe one in Marcilla now are actually producing certified fish; and there are few blueface and NO blue tangs coming from there except maybe Marcilla.

I don't mean to be confrontational with this post but am very curious as to where these fish come from. Certification NEEDS TO MEAN SOMETHING.

IMHO, they still need follow up training and extension in Bohol. For that matter, based on what Ive seen here MOST collectors/coordinators need reminders or "refresher courses" on handling, holding and packing.... Rember Eric, you ususally get the cream of the crop, IT IS NOT THE NORM, BUT THE EXCEPTION HERE.

With all due respect,

Mark

 

[naesco]

I didn't mean to underestimate the efforts that many of you have made to letting the world know that cyanide was and still is being used by industry to collect marine fish and the consequent damage the use of cyanide has done to the reefs.
I merely wanted to credit Mary Middlebrook because she was one of the few vendors who refused to deal with cyanide laced fish and, she posted on the subject extensively on her website.

I personally credit her with enlightening me about the subject of cyanide.

If MAC can certify fish as being cyanide free or larval raised and provide sufficent fish to meet the market, there will be a race to have everyone certified.

IMO hobbyists will not continue to support vendors of cyanide fish if there is an alternative.

The black mark against vendors of wild seahorses and those that buy them is an example of how quickly things can change.

 

[naesco]

Are cleaner wrasse still being caught notwithstanding the difficulty in keeping them alive in hobbyist tanks.
Why are they still being imported?
It appears to me that they are best kept in the ocean to do their job.

Is Reefcheck and the others doing their job in informing the fishers that fish like the cleaner wrasse should not be caught and thrown back in the event that they are accidently caught in their nets?

Thank you

 

[sdcfish]

Mark,

All I can say here is that the list I provided was from one of our suppliers that is certified. This was a seperate list of fish that were available on their "MAC Certified" list. The quantities and pricing I did not feel comfortable in revealing (for obvious reasons) but I can tell you that it was for real, and more fish are showing up on the lists every week with our encouragement.

I agree with you that the fish listed as certified should be so, and from the quantities listed, I think they are believable...meaning that I don't see anything obvious that there is any mischief going on.

Naesco,

I believe that mainly Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse are best left in the ocean and I rarely will order them. I did break down and ordered two fish last week and surely enough, one of the two died in our facility. It is on rare occassion that they would survive long term in captivity as Bruce Carlson from the Waikiki Aquarium had mentioned in a lecture some time back.

The pacific cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus (spelling off the cuff here) has a much higher success rate and can survive longer term. I have shipped about 1000 of these to the new very Large Aquarium for one of their exhibits and aside from many getting eaten, I think they were/are doing well.

I agree that the larval rearing fish are marketable and we have already shown support to Ecocean. I am excited about this technology and think it can be very popular. Fish Dave's Blue Tangs were very nice when available.

It was also being done 5 or 6 years ago in the French Polynesian region, but I don't really know what happened to that group. I remember seeing butterfly's chowing down on flake food...(and corals too when given the opportunity).

Best regards

Eric

 

[mark@mac]

Neasco,

I'd like to take some credit here and point out that since I moved to the Philippines, MAC/Reef Check/CCIF now DO NOT INCLUDE DIFFICULT TO KEEP SPECIES (like corallivores, etc.) in the financial viability "kalkulations" for each collection area.. However, many of these hard/impossible to keep fish are still the "mainstay" (or part of it at least) for many collection areas.(e.g. Bohol- These two collection areas produce mostly Mandarin, chelmon and maroon clown.)

It is also very hard for the collectors to understand that some fish do not survive in captivity and should NOT be caught even though their families' need to eat. Besides, they've been collecting/selling them for years. Why would people keep buying them if they don't fare well?

Mark

 

[JeremyR]

It is also very hard for the collectors to understand that some fish do not survive in captivity and should NOT be caught even though their families' need to eat. Besides, they've been collecting/selling them for years. Why would people keep buying them if they don't fare well?

In general people suck and care more about what's for dinner. It's just a fish, or so they generally tell me when I try to educate them on the subject.

 

[dizzy]

All I can say here is that the list I provided was from one of our suppliers that is certified. This was a seperate list of fish that were available on their "MAC Certified" list. The quantities and pricing I did not feel comfortable in revealing (for obvious reasons) but I can tell you that it was for real, and more fish are showing up on the lists every week with our encouragement.

Eric

Eric,
I agree with you that cleaner wrasses are not impossible to keep. I have two long term inhabitants in a couple of my displays. In an earlier post you said you were bringing in MAC certified damsels, clowns, and six lines to test the quality. I'm just curious as to why you feel there is a need to be so cautious with the MAC certifed fish? :? Especially if you are already using the same supplier for their non-MAC fish. You have told us the price was the same so it just seems like you would be jumping all over the MAC-certifed blue face and hippos. You say "and more fish are showing up on the lists every week with our encouragement". Well I'm going to suggest that actually buying the MAC-certifed variety would be worth 100x more to the collectors than meer words of encouragment. Am I missing something? Put your money where your mouth is man.

 

[PeterIMA]

Eric, Am I correct in interpeting your postings to mean that the fish species you posted on RDO came from a MAC-Certified facility but were not MAC-Certified? If they had been MAC-Certified you should have been able to tell us where they came from (which home villages) because of the mandatory paper trail that must accompany them through the chain of custody. I don't see any evidence that the blue face angels or the Majestic angels you said you had received have that type of documentation. I interpret you posting (after much pressure from others here on RDO) to indicate that you have these species but they were not MAC-Certified fishes (even if they came from a MAC Certified export facility). However, you seemed to be trying to pass them off as MAC-Certified fish (from MAC-Certified collectors) when that was not the case. This is exactly why I am opposed to MAC-Certified exporters being allowed to sell both non-certified (mostly cyanide-caught) and MAC-Certified fish (net-caught) fish.

Peter Rubec

 

[sdcfish]

Mitch,

First of all, I am surprised at yours and others aggression towards me and my comments.....I really don't see the logic or cause, but I do understand it comes from being passionate about the cause, and I do appreciate that.

Our company is made up by three owners, each of us responsible for different things. I am not personally responsible for purchasing from the Philipines or Bali but I am able to make reccomendations to my partner who is.

We do things a bit differently than a traditional wholesaler and I agree that we might take things a bit cautiously at times, but we have a process and it's all in the best interest of our company and customers. Testing the Mac certified fish was something we decided we would do before going through the process of handling and tracking them.

Understand that every Mac certified fish we receive has to be tracked and labeled as such. Our inventory in our accounting program has to be adjusted for each Mac certified fish that we receive, and new codes for invoicing must be entered. The Mac label has to travel through our "new arrival" system and then out to the main systems and all the labeling must follow. The system is being tested while we also train the department as well as testing the quality of the fish that we are receiving. Remember that the batch doa's have to fall within the limits, or we have to quarantine the fish longer to make them certifiable again after the doa's/daa's have subsided.

We are selling off batches of Mac certified fish currently without the label, but we will be labeling the fish all the way through after we feel that we are prepared to do so. This was a decision that we made as a group, not my decision alone, but I do agree with the process we are taking.

Peter,

The answer to your question is that we do not know where the fish are coming from just by looking at a stocklist. The information of tracking will appear on the invoices that we receive....not just from a stocklist. We do have all that information on invoices that we have been receiving....batch numbers etc.

Mark,

I would really like to see your input here to help the guys in Reefcheck come up with better guidelines if you have suggestions. I think that fish that were once hard to keep are not just as easy as others due to many factors, but one important one is the development of new food products designed for these more challenging fish. Also, better husbandy and care that we are learning from doing these kinds of testing and process have really helped us improve the quality of those fish you just mentioned....so we really need to be careful of what we say is "bad" or "wrong". I think it's more about education and handling that we can really improve on the still challenging species.

Back to ya'll!

Eric

 

[dizzy]

Eric,
Aggressive????? Didn't you see the razzy? P) But the questions were valid IMO. And seriously how can a MAC certifed fish be worse than a non-MAC fish from the same supplier?
Mitch

PS
Do you realize that the certifed retailers have been waiting over 4-years for some A-list fish? Doug posted a list on what Living Seas had in the way of MAC certifed fish a short time ago and there were not A-list fish included. Are any of the certifed wholesalers bringing in the good stuff yet?

 

[naesco]

Eric,
Aggressive????? Didn't you see the razzy? P) But the questions were valid IMO. And seriously how can a MAC certifed fish be worse than a non-MAC fish from the same supplier?
Mitch

PS
Do you realize that the certifed retailers have been waiting over 4-years for some A-list fish? Doug posted a list on what Living Seas had in the way of MAC certifed fish a short time ago and there were not A-list fish included. Are any of the certifed wholesalers bringing in the good stuff yet?

What are A-list fish? Could you please give me an example of some of them particularly the ones you refer to as the good stuff?
Thank you

 

[sdcfish]

Mitch,

You are right....I didn't read the razzy dazzy and I love you too.

I do realize this has been a long time coming for the A-list fish and just any substantial amount of fish and variety that are Mac certified. I guess I am just playing it down a bit because I have always been realistic on the timeline that I knew this would take. So for me...it's not such a shocker and I still feel that the progress is in line with my expectations.

So......keep an eyes out for Mac fish....and if you want to sell them as Mac fish....you best get yourself certified in a hurray! Contact John Brandt for more details. He's a cool guy!

Best regards

Eric

 

[naesco]

Neasco,

I'd like to take some credit here and point out that since I moved to the Philippines, MAC/Reef Check/CCIF now DO NOT INCLUDE DIFFICULT TO KEEP SPECIES (like corallivores, etc.) in the financial viability "kalkulations" for each collection area.. However, many of these hard/impossible to keep fish are still the "mainstay" (or part of it at least) for many collection areas.(e.g. Bohol- These two collection areas produce mostly Mandarin, chelmon and maroon clown.)

It is also very hard for the collectors to understand that some fish do not survive in captivity and should NOT be caught even though their families' need to eat. Besides, they've been collecting/selling them for years. Why would people keep buying them if they don't fare well?

WAYNE'S REPLY (sorry)
I commend you for your efforts.

The collectors will learn that the old ways (cyanide, unsuitable species etc.) are no longer acceptable and change.

People buy them because LFS bring them in and have to sell them. Species like cleaner wrasse, mandarin, moorish idol are commonly sold to newbies who are not told about the species requirements. The fish die and the newbie thinks it is his fault and goes back to the LFS and is sold something else equally unsuitable.
For this reason steps must be taken to regulate the industry on this side of the pond as well as your side.
If they don't self-regulate the government will step in.


Mark

 

[Anonymous]

i always get a kick over wayne's 'will' 'won't' statements



so far wayne, you're batting zero for god knows how many


i'm genuinely curious as to what motivates you to make these definitive fortune telling like replies each and every time

 

[naesco]

i always get a kick over wayne's 'will' 'won't' statements



so far wayne, you're batting zero for god knows how many


i'm genuinely curious as to what motivates you to make these definitive fortune telling like replies each and every time

What motivates me is the hope that I can continue the hobby that I love into old age.
Without solid progress by industry to change its ways, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our hobby (your business) will be shut down or severely regulated. Right now industry is batting zero!

 

[naesco]

CLEANER WRASSE
Below are comments from Robert Fenner

""My beef here is the issues of:

1) Offering inappropriate specimens that have little chance of living any quality of life for any quantity of time, &

2) The taking of these more challenging species from the wild,

3) Loss of "beneficial" species from the wild, and

4) The gall, greed and ignorance of mis- and lack of information that produces and perpetuates this activity.

Is this a big deal? I think so. There are too many fishes and invertebrates being lost within a short period of time; too much blame being placed on "cyanide", poor water quality, and other causes, when the plain fact is that much of this life should not have been removed in the first place. The attrition rate of ornamental aquatics hobbyists is atrocious, but can you justify staying in an interest with so much "anomalous" loss? Must we wait till governmental regulation shuts down our diversion on reports of high habitat damage and consequent captive mortality? ""

Dizzy, I am interested in finding out why you have had such success with keeping cleaner wrasse when most ethical LFS don't buy them anymore because of their dismal success rate?They sometimes come as fill though.

Eric, yes there is now more food choices than there was a decade ago.
What new food do you recommend for successfully keeping cleaner wrasse? Research has shown they eat tissue (clean external) from other fish and experience has shown that less than one in a thousand survive ore than a few weeks.

Thank you Wayne

 

[Kalkbreath]

It is also very hard for the collectors to understand that some fish do not survive in captivity and should NOT be caught even though their families' need to eat. Besides, they've been collecting/selling them for years. Why would people keep buying them if they don't fare well?

In general people suck and care more about what's for dinner. It's just a fish, or so they generally tell me when I try to educate them on the subject.

Thats a pretty bold statement.
Look it from their eyes,(Philippinos) Dont forget ,They look at us (the USA)as the root of most world evil. (sex,greed and global warming)
They kill the reef to eat, Americans kill their own US reefs and threaten all the other reefs around the globe. (with unrelenting co2 emissions) not so we can eat ......but to flaunt our disrespect on the enviroment and the rest of the worlds inhabitants.
60% of the diet of the average island Phillipino is from the ocean, and most of that is self collected or on a local level.THATS 60 MIllion FISH A DAY!
Try that at home. Without a job our money,could you mr "Great American" survive feeding your family from the local woods and lakes around your home?
Could you? if half of your nabors were fishing next to you daily on the local river bank? How long would the fish supply hold out?
We keep as pets what they depend on to feed their children.
Eating fish is an option here in the USA.