Coral Farming 2

[JoJo2011]

If you would like to respond to these questions please feel free to do so. I am writing a series of papers on the importance of coral farming to the private aquarium society.

1. First off, what interested you in keeping a coral reef?

2. What have you learned from owning and caring for one? Particularly what has it done to your awareness of the world around you (nature, consumption) but also what have you learned about coral reefs.

3. Do you believe coral fragmenting and farming is something all aquarium owners should strive for? Why or why not?

4. Why do or don't you believe coral farming is important?

5. What exactly is involved in fragmenting corals? What kind of equipment, time, money, knowledge is involved? Is it something that will take a lot of your free time?

6. Do you believe that farming has really made an impact on natural reefs? Explain what kind and how much of an impact you believe.

7. Harvesting from natural reefs is a big part of some tropical countries economies. How do you feel about using coral farming to diminish the impact these countries are having on natural reefs? Keeping in mind that most of these countries are largly poor.

8. What is your personal involvment in farming? Do you actively fragment your corals to sell or trade with friends?




**** I'm using all information gained here to assist me in writing a serious of informative papers for a class at Loyola University Chicago. Thankyou for the time and effort you put into answering these questions, your participation is greatly appreciated.



-Joe

[Legatio]

You should probably put this in the coral propagation forum but...here are my answers:

1. dont know really, was always a salt dog living in Fl and the east coast of texas growing up, i love the water and the coastal lifestyle so i started a tank when i settled in central Fl.

2. nothing at all except how to tweak a protein skimmer, keeping a closed system reef isnt like a wild reef and alot of hobby specimens have adapted to captive conditions, most of what ive learned from reefs has been diving in the keys or in books, not from my tanks. Same for nature and the world around, nature from pole boating and air boating thru the swamps and the world around from travel.

3. yes and no, some should if they want and have the passion too. others shouldnt because they dont have the knowledge to or the ability to stay interested long enough to keep healthy frags.

4. I believe its important to lessen the impact to reefs globally and for medical research.

5. it all depends on the person and the size of the setup, i had 19 20gl set up in a U with a 55 in the middle, but will have 12 100g rubbermaid feeding troughs, always had and always will have, till something better comes along, a modified berlin system with timed 1hr every other day carbon. My frag setup cost less than $1k and i can turn out about 300 frags a month part time but almost everything is DIY except pumps, hardware, and the bulbs in my T5s, all of which i got used or wholesale from friends but ive seen people drop a quarter million on systems with a lot less capable output. i have alot of time invested too, i probably have over $200k worth of my time in my coral including my time spent keeping a plain reef and learning enough to start fragging, cost wise, if you add everything including my first tank... about $3-400k, just my current setup, about $1k and $400 a month over head with a green house it would be more startup cost less over head, why im setting up a green house by adding on to my wifes old one. Knowledge, i hate to say but for the first year i basically winged it, watched my developing brood stock like a hawk to make sure they were ok and read probably 150k pages of info to just end up confused and ready to quit, so i still wing it :P but a basic knowledge of the required parameters for captive coral is a must, it doesnt take alot of my free time, about 5 hours a week of work and 15hrs of just watching the coral do their thing.

6. yes i do, a good impact but a small one that needs to get bigger, search around and find photos of wild harvesting in the phillipines and what their reefs look like now, if farming reduces demand and stops that, then great, if not, the UN will spearhead outlawing wild harvesting or countries will outlaw importation and the hobby will almost die till farms catch up with demand and prices drop again.

7. If they want to keep the industry then they need to use it as an industry and stop the destruction, wild harvest wouldnt even be that bad if they rotated harvest zones like farmers rotate crops and use gentler collecting practices instead of strip mining and there are a few places making those changes but if they insist on destroying the vast ecosystems, some of which havent even been studied in full yet, i wont shed a tear for them losing their job to the guy mariculturing the same product or to the farmer in his basement in michigan.

8. i started farming for fun and as an excuse to my wife for extending my hobby and now i actively farm for sale mainly but i do trade and hold charity give aways and auctions.

anything else, PM me or ask here

[JoJo2011]

thanks a ton. give me a couple days and i will probably be messaging you.

[greenbean36191]

1. I'm a marine bio student and beach bum stuck 150 miles from the coast and 500 miles from the reefs I love. If I can't go to them, at least I can turn on radio margaritaville, stare at my reef, and pretend I'm where I want to be.

2. Again, most of what I know came from formal training and field experience rather than the other way around. One thing the hobby has taught me though is how ignorant most people really are about what a real reef is like.

3. Not really. There is no shortage of frags in the hobby already. I'd much rather see people put effort into figuring out how to breed new species that aren't currently available captive bred.

4. I believe coral farming is important simply due to the stressors, natural and man-made, facing reefs. They're really in much worse shape than most people realize and regardless of how big the impact of the hobby is in relation to other stressor, every little bit makes a difference. We already have the means to reduce our impact through farming if we could just make small changes in our buying habits.

5. If you have a tank that you grow corals in you really don't need any extra equipment or knowledge to start fragging corals on a small to moderate scale. You basically cut or break pieces off as the coral grows and then fasten them to rocks and let them grow out. It takes almost no additional time. Of course you can also go the route of setting up separate tanks just for frags and rack up a lot more expense, equipment, and time investment.

6. Not yet, and if the current trend continues it won't any time soon. Most of the farming so far has been centered around people fragmenting and trading their corals at home with the intent of reducing the demand for wild corals. While that does reduce the demand for wild corals from the hobby, demand for the corals for other uses such as medicine, curios, and construction still outpace supply, so the net impact is essentially zero and sometimes may be even worse. Reducing our demand without providing comparable economic alternatives just means that the corals that would have gone into our tanks are being turned into cement instead. To have any real impact on the reefs, more interest needs to shift towards corals farmed in situ. They reduce the pressure on wild corals while still keeping the collectors employed. So far though, interest has been fairly limited and most pieces are too expensive for the majority of hobbyists.

7. It's a great compromise between such a destructive hobby, the collectors, and the wild reefs. Everyone wins. There are other great options besides farming, like eco-tourism, though that could help save the reefs and still keep the would-be collectors fed. They just rely more on non-use of the reefs than responsible use, so as hobbyists we don't directly benefit.

8. I trade frags and when I can I buy corals grown in situ rather than locally.