Gracing our pages in this week’s AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a red firefish goby (Nemateleotris magnifica) seen in the reef aquarium at the Aquarium Restaurant in Kemah. This particular fish is very common in the hobby, but its frequency in the trade doesn’t detract from its beauty even in the slightest bit. The dartfish sports a predominantly white anterior that gradually changes into a rich red posterior that eventually terminates into a deep crimson caudal fin. The fish’s beauty is also matched by it’s personality. The goby will hover around the rock structure and constantly flick its dorsal fin and small groups will usually hang out near each other. When frightened, the fish will dart into a hole in the rocks or may even jump out of the aquarium.

Buried at the bottom of a recent anti-aquarium themed online article in the San Francisco Gate covering the recent troubles Petco has been experiencing in Hawaii, a somewhat lengthy video shows college professor Dr. Gail Grabowsky releasing five yellow tangs into the waters off a beach in Waikiki. Prior to the release, Dr. Grabowsky speaks at length about the aquarium trade, making sure to describe how many fish die in captivity, which fish are found only in Hawaii, and alternatives to purchasing wild-caught fish. After the long-winded talk, the professor proceeds to walk out onto one of the jetties and quickly release five “baby” yellow tangs back into the ocean. The area the fish were released in is known as the Waikiki’s Marine Life Conservation District, which is off limits to collectors.

A couple of things on this video. First, we appreciate the more level headed understanding Dr. Grabowsky has of the industry, which is evident by her actually promoting captive breeding instead of screaming for an outright ban on the hobby. She does mention banning the hobby on a few instances, but her seemingly open minded mentions about aquaculture is a far different standpoint that her less sane counterparts have taken. Most anti-aquarium activists just call for a total ban on aquarium keeping. The professor discusses the perks of aquaculture and how many jobs it can create while at the same time alleviating pressures from the environment.

A few other things in the video we saw, or heard rather, were the continual use of unverifiable data. Dr. Gail uses the typical “1 in 10″ fish die before they make it to the customer figure, and made reference to data that she and her students collected during class trips. According to her data, Hawaiian endemics that are sought after in the aquarium trade are 10 times more frequent in protected areas like Hanauma Bay than in unprotected waters. She goes on to state that the reason for these differences is strictly due to the aquarium industry. We respectfully disagree with Dr. Grabowsky’s assertions and invite everyone on these points simply for the reason that she could easily come to the wrong conclusion as to why there are discrepancies in fish populations because she, and many others, are letting their emotions guide them to those conclusions. Realistically, fish populations could be depressed in non-restricted areas for any number of reasons, including but not limited to fish collection. Hanauma Bay is a nature preserve, both in the ocean and on land. Because of this, the nearby land is nowhere near as developed as other parts of the island. Naturally, fish will avoid human interactions at all costs and seek out the cleaner waters of protected areas. We assume the waters to be cleaner in places like Hanauma Bay because less development means less nutrient runoff, lower water turbidity, and less pollution.

As for the fish release itself, Dr. Gail’s actions couldn’t be more irresponsible. While she claims the fish were freshly collected from Hawaiian waters and never left the plastic containers in which they were delivered, there’s no way she could have known this unless she was there to see the fish collected, which we know not to be true. Instead, she has to rely solely on the honesty of the fish collector, which we find to be interesting since anti-aquarium activists don’t seem too keen on trusting collectors in the first place. If the fish had been taken to a facility and placed in systems with fish from different parts of the world, the five baby tangs could have come into contact with a wide variety of non-native diseases and parasites. It’s because of all of these unknowns that we, as hobbyists, should never release a fish back into the wild.

Regardless, the bags were opened up and the fish were dumped right into the ocean. They weren’t acclimated to the different conditions that were likely to occur between the water in the bag and that of the ocean, which could have caused undue stress on the already stressed fish. This whole ordeal could have been very counterproductive had the fish died of shock due to drastic differences in pH or salinity.

UPDATE: Thanks to the overwhelming amount of emails sent to Dr. Gail from the aquarium community, they decided to make the original video private. Fortunately, someone made a copy of it before it got pulled.

Native Hawaiian Fish at the Waikiki Aquarium

In one of his latest articles on the MASNA Blog covering the aquarium trade’s legal hurdles in Hawaii, Ret Talbot tells the aquarium community that the Kauai County Council has voted unanimously to get a draft resolution into next year’s legislative package that would place an outright ban on the collection of wildlife to be sold in the aquarium industry. As with the previous legislation from the Hawaii County Council, this proposed ban will not have an immediate impact on aquarium collection and isn’t a state law. However, it is still something to be taken seriously, as both of these council resolutions could easily grow into something with a far greater impact.

The major persisting problem seen between this council vote and the previous one is the misuse of real information and the overabundance of misinformation. Couple this with the fact that decision makers (e.g. council members) are ignoring the data that’s right in front of them, and you’ve got people making decisions based on emotions and ethics instead of facts. According to Dr. William Walsh, a state aquatic biologist with the Division of Aquatic Resources from the Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Aquatic Resources, yellow tang populations are actually on the rise with the help of well managed fisheries. But those arguing against the aquarium industry tell the story otherwise, often taking data out of context and outright ignoring the fact that fish numbers are increasing.

These two council votes, while not immediately damaging to the industry, do undermine the intense efforts of biologists, activists, and everyone else participating in the management of the Hawaiian fishery. The misuse and misrepresentation of available data only drives a wedge between pro- and anti-aquarium activists.

We encourage all of you to get informed and get involved in these current issues. For more information, head on over to the MASNA Blog and read more about the council votes.

Over the last few years, the US economy has experienced some volatility, to put it nicely. The aquarium hobby has been hit rather hard in particular, as it’s not a necessity in most households. I say most because I think I would go crazy without some form of reef life in my living room and I would probably go broke hanging onto that last gallon of saltwater. I was recently chatting with the owner of a local fish store about the current state of the hobby, and to my surprise, he stated that both livestock sales and fish availability have been down despite his store receiving a nice fish order that very day. During our conversation, I assumed he was talking about his store alone, but before I could get a word out, he clarified that this was supposedly happening nationwide. It is a very common practice that store owners talk to livestock wholesalers about what’s going on in the fish world, especially about what other local stores are ordering. After all, you do want to at least keep up with what the competition is doing. In these conversations, multiple wholesalers indicated something more grim; livestock sales are down nationwide and at least one of the smaller suppliers has considered going out of business altogether.

Economics play a key role in this situation, but it’s not the only factor affecting fish availability.

Part of the problem with the recent livestock slumps comes in part because of certain religious holidays that are viewed in parts of the world where a majority of fish are collected. Because many of the fish collectors are Muslim, the month long celebration of Ramadan takes a toll on livestock collecting. During this religious holiday, work is forbidden for the most part and the hobby takes a sizable hit. Please understand that we are not knocking anyone’s religious views by stating this. We are merely pointing out that participation in the holiday has impacted fish availability for aquarium hobbyists in the US.

Another factor in the fish trade is natural disasters. For example, Thailand has been flooded constantly over the past four months. Almost 400 people have lost their lives in this disaster. This obviously draws attention away from collecting fish and onto self preservation and survival, but it’s just another thing affecting collecting for the aquarium trade. Couple that with the earthquake Japan is still recovering from, and you’ve got fewer people in the water collecting.

Getting back to the global economic situation, we understand that aquarium stores will come and go, and because most aquarium stores operate on a very narrow margin, even the good ones are susceptible to economic pressures and many may close up shop. We strongly support local and online retailers who do things right, and we encourage aquarium keepers to do the same. Find a retailer that properly houses their animals, provides good customer service, and does their best to sell fish and corals to only those who are equipped to handle them. Avoid the retail chain stores and the mom-and-pop businesses that have a complete disregard for reef life and help keep the good ones in business. Obviously, we don’t suggest that you stretch your finances thin in an attempt to prop up your local fish store, but the next time you do have the extra income to throw at your hobby, try to buy from the store that helps our hobby instead of one of those that hurt it.

Snorkelers Standing on Coral Head in the Philippines, Copyright Voice21

With all of the rhetoric surrounding the potential banning of the aquarium trade in Hawaii, we’ve decided that the conservationists backing any form of anti-aquarium legislation need to not only focus on one industry, but every industry that has roots in the ocean. The tourism industry, for example, is one of the largest perpetrators of reef destruction, which comes in a variety of forms like coral reef damage, pollution and runoff from the development of the tourist infrastructure, and the atrocious shell and curio trade to name a few. Snorkelers lather up with sunscreen and hop into the ocean to fondle sea turtles, stand on corals while they adjust their foggy dive masks, and dump all sorts of garbage into the water. On land, continual development of beaches and boating lanes stirs up sediment and releases untold amounts of algae-fueling nutrients into the water, and those not courageous enough to venture into the water don’t mind buying up shell necklaces and ocean-based home decor. And they want to point the finger at the aquarium trade, which is an industry that makes the extra effort to promote conservation around every turn? They want to blame the collectors for decimating their fish populations? I say lets ban the tourism industry, and while we’re at it, let’s go after recreational fishing and any sort of coastal development. And since groups like For the Fishes want to toss around undocumented statistics in all of their articles, here’s one of our own: 98.7% of all corals and invertebrates that a diver encounters on the reef die within a week of that encounter. Pulling random information out of our butts in order to elicit an emotional response is fun isn’t it?

The aquarium industry in Hawaii should be viewed as a fishery and nothing more. For that reason alone, it can be regulated in a very sustainable way. In fact, current regulations have proven to be quite helpful to the different fish populations of Hawaii. For example, yellow tang numbers are on the rise, but the conservationists of the state don’t like to go by statistical data that has a source. They want to see an outright ban on the hobby, which is not necessary by any means.

From the Hawaii DAR…

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW MANAGEMENT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK. In 2000, the state started aggressively managing yellow tang, the prize fish of the aquarium trade in Hawaii. It was a move that came on the heels of community concern that the fish were being overharvested.

Since, the yellow tang population along Kona coast – the heart of the aquarium trade in Hawaii – has increased an impressive 35 percent. But at the same time, the number of yellow tangs collected for the aquarium trade jumped 81 percent. The value of the yellow tang catch overall increased 164 percent, leaping from $383,000 to more than $1 million per year.

Over ten years of managing aquarium collection like a fishery and it has shown to increase tang populations. Sounds like a sustainable practice to me. The report proves our point that that total bans are not required for sustainable collection and that the aquarium industry isn’t raping the reefs like they would have you believe.

Back to the tourism industry. If you think that divers and boaters don’t damage the coral reefs, then you are incredibly naive. The aquarium hobby does have irresponsible pet owners, but the tourism industry is full of irresponsible individuals too. And with millions of visitors to Hawaiian reefs each year, the effects can be far reaching. People stand on coral reefs constantly, and they could care less. The photograph at the top of this article is proof of such irresponsible actions, and the text associated with that photo is even more disturbing…

From Voice21:

I was ready to go out, I was excited. I saw loads of fish, even Dory from Finding Nemo. They would just come up to your hand and eat the bread, the corals were huge! We stood on one, but the current kept pushing me and I couldn’t keep my balance, then I felt something on my toe. I got stung by a sea urchin. I don’t think I’ve ever felt my toe so much; it was like a headache in my toe. Everyone laughs when I say that but I can’t explain it any other way. Then I kicked the coral, I had no idea how bad it was until I got on the boat. One foot was cut and the other had a sea urchin spike in it! My feet had so many scars from this holiday.

How sustainable does this practice sound Snorkel Bob? Would you like to jump on the anti-tourism bandwagon too? Doubtful since you sell snorkel gear and operate dives in Hawaii all of the time. Perhaps you should look at your industry before you go attacking others.

Want some more proof on how badly the tourism industry affects coral reefs, read this interesting article by Practical Fishkeeping: Coral reefs are literally sick of ecotourists, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Conservation Biology. Here’s a brief excerpt from that article:

The authors compared prevalence of brown band disease, white syndromes, black band disease, skeletal eroding band, and growth anomalies among reefs with and without permanent tourism platforms within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Basing their study on eight reef sites (four with platforms and four without), the authors visually surveyed the corals for signs of disease using belt transects.

When their results were analysed, the authors found that coral diseases were 15 times more prevalent at reefs with offshore tourism platforms than at nearby reefs without platforms.

A greater diversity of corals was also found to suffer at sites with platforms: diseases affected 10 coral genera from 7 families at reefs with platforms and 4 coral genera from 3 families at reefs without platforms.

In a nutshell, the mere presence of divers in the water caused harm and they weren’t even standing on the corals. Image how much more damaging it is when you have idiots walking on corals and kicking them, as the individual from the photograph above clearly stated. Tourism has a huge negative impact on reef health and for that reason, it should be banned.

Pictured in the latest AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a pair of ocellaris clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) exhibiting numerous black spots on their bodies. The common belief for these spots is that they form when a clownfish tries to take up residence in a coral, usually when an anemone is not present. The coral stings the clownfish, forming small dots of black pigmentation, but the condition is not fatal to the clown and really doesn’t affect it behaviorally either. When most hobbyists see the black dots, they get very worried and hit the forums looking for an answer thinking they have some sort of malady that could possibly kill their fish. Fortunately, this condition is only temporary in most instances and will likely go away once the clown changes hosts.

Even though our obsession with marine and reef aquaria runs very deep, sometimes it’s good to step away from that which we created and enjoy a little outdoor time. Being from Texas, or more specifically the Gulf Coast region, I was essentially born with a fishing pole in my hands. Almost my entire life I’ve been exposed to both fresh and saltwater fishing, as I was often taken on many excursions with my dad and brothers. Even though recreational fishing would seem like something that goes totally against our stance on keeping fish alive and alleviating any stress from our captive fish, it’s still an outdoor activity that has many benefits, some of which are listed below, that might be passed over in favor of playing with our reef aquariums.

Fishing can be a great experience for any child and is a great way for fathers to bond with their kids. Reef aquariums can be a great way to get the kids involved too, but in all honesty the fascination with an aquarium stops with the fish, corals, and invertebrates themselves and doesn’t always translate to quality time with the family. After all, what kid want’s to stay indoors to help dad with a water change? Fishing, on the other hand, is full of excitement and being out on a boat in the middle of a lake or bay provides a great opportunity to bond with the family.

Besides providing a great way to spend time with the family, fishing can also be a great educational tool. The amount of exposure a child gets to all of the marine and freshwater life is quite extensive, and it’s not just limited to the fish. Different kinds of wildlife can be seen all over the place, from snakes to birds and turtles to alligators. Seeing all of this wildlife can also lead to aquarium keeping, especially if the fishing experience is a positive one. Getting to see the unique fish in their natural habitat and enjoying the excitement of catching them can put a desire into young future aquarium keepers that grows into a lifetime of aquarium keeping. It certainly happened for me, and I’m sure many others as well.

In closing, I’ll also point out that we are strong supporters of catch-and-release. Fishing can be very fun, and like any activity in which we interact with the environment, we must do it responsibly. If you do decide to keep a fish, be sure to observe state, local, and federal regulations, as they are designed with the best interest of the fish population in mind.

The anti-aquarium trolls are out and about again, with their latest efforts coming in the form of a new resolution with the goal to once again attempt a ban on aquarium collecting in Hawaii. According to a recent Coral Magazine article by Ret Talbot, this new resolution (Resolution 130 11) will go up for discussion later today at at Hawaii County Council meeting and is being backed by anti-trade activists who frequently use moral arguments that are often presented with no cited data, but instead just random figures used to scare the public into supporting their proposed legislation. The activists claim that the aquarium trade is decimating wild populations of fish, specifically yellow tangs, and even try to make the argument that virtually all of these fish die in captivity within a year. Fortunately, real scientists and other environmentalists with legitimate and thoroughly cited data disagree with the anti-aquarium activists, and even some opponents of the aquarium trade have expressed opposition to this particular resolution. It should also be noted that every form of legislation against the aquarium trade in Hawaii have been rejected.

The big argument made by anti-aquarium activists is the steadily decreasing tang populations caused by aquarium collecting. However, scientific data fails to support this argument, and actually goes against it. According to the data presented in the Coral Magazine article, tang populations are actually on the rise since the marine aquarium fisheries are well regulated and sustainable in Hawaiian waters. Dr. William Walsh, an aquatic biologist with Hawaii’s Division of Aquatic Resources, explains “Over the past twelve years, the West Hawai’i population of Yellow Tang in the 30’-60’ prime reef habitat has increased by just over 337,000 fish. Similarly Kole Tang populations have increased by over 1,019,000 fish.” He also points out that both Kole and yellow tangs make up 91% of the total West Hawaiian aquarium catch. Despite this data, you could probably never convince anti-aquarium activists that the trade is not doing what they claim.

The original article on Coral Magazine’s website is a great read and we recommend that you read it. We doubt this new resolution will pass, as the data simply isn’t there to support tearing down the aquarium trade.

Big thanks to Jason Hurd for the heads up on this story.

Pictured this week in the AquaNerd POTW is the brand new Tangerine clownfish from Proaquatix. This new fish is of the Ocellaris clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) variety and doesn’t feature the wild stripe patterns seen in the typical designer clownfish. Instead, the Tangerine clown has a light orange color, pinkish eyes, and almost no black anywhere on its body making it an albino. The breeding gurus at Proaquatix have made these fish available, but they still aren’t sure what genetic mechanism is causing the albinism. They originally thought leucistic, many breeders have chimed in to say otherwise. Regardless of the mechanism, it’s an albino fish that is likely the first to be offered commercially, though albinos have been seen in clownfish before.

After giving a long winded discussion about saltwater aquariums to a group of interested hobbyists at Fish Gallery last night, I wandered around the store checking out all of the cool livestock they had on display. I saw plenty of corals and fish, but one fish pinged my radar big time. In one of the endcap displays sat a stunning yellow fuzzy dwarf lionfish. Now, I’m not at all a lionfish guy. In my opinion, they are we overplayed in the aquarium trade and they have wrought all sorts of havoc in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. But this was no ordinary lionfish. The yellow lionfish is a very rare color form, as it is only found in one location, the Lembeh Straits. And while most of the yellow lions we have seen online mostly have their yellow coloration limited to the fins and various bands on the body, this individual was basically yellow all over. In fact, there was more yellow on this fish than any other yellow lionfish we’ve ever seen. The fish barely has any dark colored striations on its body. To make it even more appealing, this individual was full of personality, as it would interact with anyone who approached the aquarium.

UPDATE: Fish Gallery contacted us to upate the price. This indivdual retails for $300, which is actually rather inexpensive given the fish’s rarity and unusual coloration.