On the weekend
of June 4th, 5th and 6th
I had the pleasure of attending IMAC (International Marine
Aquarium Conference) held in Chicago. The conference had a
host of excellent speakers and our internet site Reefs.org
and online publication Advanced Aquarist was one of
the exhibitors.
I was especially
delighted to see a seahorse club come not to sell seahorses
or associated equipment, but simply to show off their large
and healthy seahorses. This is but one of many pictures I
took of their animals. I find it rewarding to see well fed
and healthy seahorses. As most aquarists know trying to get
wild seahorses can be quite trying and unsuccessful. These
were tank raised.
This brings me
to the general theme, at least from my point of view, of this
and other recent conferences: aquaculture, collection of wild
animals that does not impact on the populations of the various
collected species, healthy shipping and holding facilities,
etc. If it is not our members who care about the future of
these animals and their habitats (mostly wild reefs) who will
- certainly not the oil companies? It also became clear from
the talks and attendant discussions that success or failure
finally rests with retail stores and the buying practices
of hobbyists. If it is the attitude of hobbyists to buy animals
by price alone, and if stores want to get the animals out
of their store as quickly as possible then our hobby is doomed
- these attitudes will lead to the death of animals within
three months to the tune of about 90 percent.
Most of us recognize
that getting a fish from the wild to one's tank in a condition
that will allow the new specimen a reasonable chance to survive,
even flourish, for more than a year is far from easy. In my
opinion, the problem mostly lays with retail stores and aquarists
whose priority when purchasing and selling is price. Fortunately,
there are a few - too few-that operate from a totally different
philosophy. Doug Robbins and I, after IMAC, took a trip to
Inland Aquatics in Terre Haute. Morgan Litster, the
owner, runs 40,000-gallons of seawater where he only buys
net caught and aquacultured fish. Even then, he keeps all
new fish for 4 to 6 weeks in quarantine before offering them
to the public. In my close to fifty years keeping marine fish
I have never seen as many healthy fish in one establishment
as at inland Aquatics (http://www.inlandaquatics.com/).
Next month I or Doug Robbins will devote a whole article to
how Morgan does what he does. To wet your appetite, here is
one shot from the many that I took.
One
of the many tanks at Inland Aquatics dedicated to aquaculture.
