<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Fishaholic:
<strong>If it is neccesary I will dig through the threads and get the direct qoute where I directly asked Mary if she would stop importing corals that are so easily fragged, her response was no that these corals are fast growing and very sustainable.
I also asked why she would not stop importing clown fish. Her response was that she has wild caught species and she would not want to mix aquacultured and wild. She also said there were not enough variety of tank raised. As of last year C quest offered 11 species of clown fish with more to come.
I fail to see how these explainations qualify as "will try" and "when possible"</strong><hr></blockquote>
I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself editing out the parts you don't like, so I'll quote it for you.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by MaryHM
<strong>I order invertebrates from ORA. In fact, I'm working with them on marketing one of their new products. BTW, even though ORA is afflilated with Harbor Branch, they are a FOR PROFIT business. That makes them industry. I have recently starting doing orders from a farm in the Marshall Islands that propagates numerous corals and clams. I order aquacultured corals from the Solomon Islands everytime I place an order with that export facility. We are also in talks with an Australian seahorse breeding facility and plan to start distributing their animals within 3 months. We are in the beginning stages of talks to start our coral propagation farm in Fiji. As this is quite a large undertaking, and is going to require a lot of capital to get started, it will probably be about a year before we actually start propagating- I'm hoping sooner, but it all depends on the economy.
As far as purchasing captive bred fish, I have 3 problems:
1. My fish system is pretty small and ORA and C-quest have quite large minimums.
2. Mixing wild fish with captive bred fish is a bad combination. The captives invaribly break down with some kind of disease they aren't resistant to. Ask the breeders- they even say it's a bad idea. We have an addition to our fish room that we are going to set up a separate system in just for captive breds. That will probably happen next fall.
3. The variety is bad. There is no way that a wholesale company could purchase solely captive bred fish and/or corals and still stay in business.
I have not built my greenhouses yet, as we have been working on finishing our fish building. I am propagating 3 species of xenia, one on a commercial level (we have discontinued importing that species as a result). We also started our Coral Polyp Rescue program a couple of months ago and have numerous frags in the grow out stage and are fragging more every week. We have a graduate student in coral reef ecology that is working on this for us. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I think reading what Mary actually said, rather than relying on your rendition, shows that she really is complying with "will try" and "when possible."
11 species of clown does not a business make. What Mary said (since you don't seem to be able to read her words that well) is that putting captive bred fish in with wild caught causes the captive bred to break down. She has a small fish system that would expose captive bred fish to wild caught fish parasites and disease in the system (not neccessarily the same species of fish!). She's even planning on expanding so that she can have a "captive only" section - gee, sounds like "will try" to me.
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Fishaholic:
<strong>It is nice of you to keep flaming me on Mary's behalf.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not really on Mary's behalf - I just hate to see you continually try and spread your one-sided view of the world and slam an "industry" person who really seems to be trying and make a difference. Many people on this board believe in conservation efforts, captive propagation, and selective species bans (actually, I can think of only one person who doesn't seem to fit that profile), and they all seem to be able to express their opinions in a
rational manner and try to move the discussion forward. Only two people (you being one), seem to want to make this a snide, condescending, "you're-a-fool-if-you-don't-see-it-my-way" insult exchange.
Do you have an ulterior motive for sidetracking every discussion?
To everyone else, I apologize for becoming part of his sidetracking - I JUST CAN'T TAKE THIS &^*% ANY MORE.
Kevin
[ January 09, 2002: Message edited by: Anemone ]</p>