Re: NANFA-- FW: Petition on Corals

Moontanman-in-aol.com
Thu, 1 Jul 2004 21:18:29 EDT

In a message dated 7/1/04 5:03:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
farmertodd-in-buckeye-express.com writes:

>
> The only way I can see (in perhaps a limited view) to maintain these
species
> is maintaining the wild habitat. Palmata is too massive to rear
> successfully in captivity without insane costs... I doubt that genetic
> integrity could be maintained in any of the species, since recreating the
> volume of water that races across them is just insanity for a closed system
> (and mutations that favor lower flow would be a nightmare). And in either
> case, good luck sexually spawning it! :)
>
There are some people who maintain these corals and sell small specimens,
these corals do not have to grown to huge size to be successfully propagated.
Small pieces picked up from storm damage is the origin of all the captive
specimens that I have knowledge of. Contrary to what was once thought about small
polyp stony corals they are not extremely difficult to propagate. I've done it
but the form changes drastically with different environments. I've often
wondered how many coral species are really just "environmental forms" of the same
species. I am all for saving coral in the wild, although some corals have been
taken from captive specimens and transplanted into the wild I really don't think
that is ever going to be a reasonable way to "save" coral species. I just
wouldn't want to see strict laws used to kill the captive propagation of corals
but I do think that development and pollution are by far the real danger to
corals around the world. Caribbean corals are highly stressed due to siltation,
pollution, and trawler type net fishing. I know that in the Florida keys
building houses on or near the shore has had an extreme impact on corals far beyond
anything connected with reef tanks even though the aquarium trade often gets
lots of bad press and much of the blame. I doubt that the ban on collecting
coral for aquarium use has had or will have any real effect on the decline of
coral in the Caribbean but I would hate to see another black eye imposed on the
aquarium trade that we don't deserve.

Moon
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