livingart Posted March 4, 2011 Report Share Posted March 4, 2011 http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content ... me-reality Tank-Raised Tangs, Triggers & Others: Aquaculture Makes A Quantum Leap Forward Wild-spawned, tank-reared Blue Hippo Tangs, Paracanthurus hepatus, at Sustainable Aquatics, whose Sustainable Islands initiative is making tanked-raised pelagic fishes available in commercial quantities for the first time. By Ret Talbot Excerpt from the March/April 2011 Issue of CORAL On any given day you can find between 135,000 and 165,000 animals—species that are decidedly not indigenous to the American southeast—nestled between Carl’s Home Center and the now-defunct Franklin Super Market on West Old Andrew Johnson Highway in downtown Jefferson City, Tennessee. The vast majority are pomacentrids—clownfishes and some damsels—but there are others. On this particular day, a hard winter afternoon with stiff angled sunlight drawing sharp shadows across monochromatic brick buildings, I am greeted by colorful swaths of butterflyfishes, blennies, gobies, cardinalfishes, and a host of other exotic, reef-associated, tropical marine fishes. This is certainly not what one would expect in this working class town of just over 8,000 people, with its antebellum Baptist college and a median household income of barely $23,500. But here it is. Sustainable Aquatics is the reason coral reef fishes often outnumber people 20,000 to one in Jefferson City. “Most people have no idea what goes on here,” Matthew Carberry, president of Sustainable Aquatics, right, tells me as we enter the three-story brick building at the heart of the company’s rapidly expanding campus. Carberry grew up in this town, but even many of the kids from his high school class still only know the building as the old Jefferson City headquarters of the Appalachian Electric Cooperative. So what does go on in this old brick building with a new facade facing the street? Simply stated, Sustainable Aquatics is a saltwater fish hatchery providing captive-bred and tank-raised aquarium animals to the international marine aquarium trade. This, in and of itself, does not make it unique, although the speed with which the young company has moved to the second spot in the North American marine ornamental hatchery industry certainly has captured the attention of many observers. A DIFFERENT BRAND OF HATCHERY What really has caught my attention is the Company’s Sustainable Islands division. This initiative adds a radical new layer to the original clownfish hatchery model, and, in truth, it is what motivated me to buy a ticket to Tennessee. While marine ornamental hatcheries today are offering a growing list of species, it is a reality that only a very small percentage of the species we keep in saltwater aquaria have ever been bred in captivity—and even fewer on a commercial level. Sustainable Aquatics frequently offers animals on their weekly price list that are unheard of from a hatchery. We’re talking tank-raised Blue Hippo Tangs, Yellow Tangs, various butterflyfishes, including the much-coveted Copperbands, and other pelagic spawners. Because of their reproductive habits and hard-to-feed larvae, these fishes have eluded the best efforts of breeders, and some of them have a dismal reputation when it comes to mortality in the aquarium. So the fact that Sustainable Aquatics is marketing them as hardy and acclimated to aquarium conditions and foods is a quantum leap. To be clear, these butterflies and tangs, among others, were not bred in captivity at Sustainable Aquatics. These are wild-caught fishes, net-collected as small post-larval and juvenile fishes recently settled onto the reef and then reared or raised at SA’s dedicated Sustainable Islands facility. These fishes, once imported, will spend anywhere from a month to a year at Sustainable Aquatics before being branded as tank-raised Sustainable Islands fish and moved to market. Sustainable Aquatics is not the first hatchery to deal in tank-raised animals, and these terms—tank-reared or tank-raised—have frequently been confused and even abused. But as much as I get excited about a tank-raised, hardy, Aiptasia-eating Copperband Butterfly that devours a captive diet, I am getting ahead of myself, for the Sustainable Islands initiative only exists because of the able leadership of Matthew Carberry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony law Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 :nilly: :happy1: so when do you start the breeding program :facepalm: fish that is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted March 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 you are an impatient young man Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony law Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 rigth back at you old chap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livingart Posted March 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 :love: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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