Ranching – a Different Way to Collect Saltwater Fish for the Aquarium Industry
JEREMY GAY2 WEEKS AGO
In the last week, our social media feed lit up with a new term that describes a different way to collect saltwater aquarium fish – Ranching. Spearheaded by Quality Marine in the US and Tropical Marine Centre in the UK, ranching involves collecting tiny post-larval tropical marine fish at night by way of surface light traps, then rearing the tiny juveniles in captivity for two months until they are larger and can be offered for sale. Although the term was new to us, the practice isn’t as it’s been talked about for most of the twenty years that we’ve been in the industry and has been pioneered and developed by QM and TMC’s eco partner in all this – Ecocean – for some 10 years. So how does it differ from normal saltwater fish collection?
When their eggs hatch, the majority of reef fishes go through a pelagic larval phase, where the larvae drift through the oceans, sometimes for hundreds of miles, dining on phytoplankton and themselves becoming part of the vast zooplankton soup which helps drive the web of life. When they reach the post-larval phase they smell out reefs and habitats, head into shallower water, and seek to settle there, grow on, and become established adults themselves. Mortality is high in this key development stage however, with only 5-10% of post-larval fish surviving predation and territorial attack from congeners, and a less than 1% survival rate if the reef has been damaged or replaced entirely with man-made structures like ports.
More info can be found in the whole article/thread, including a video link:
Ranching - a Different Way to Collect Saltwater Fish for the Aquarium Industry | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog
In the last week, our social media feed lit up with a new term that describes a different way to collect saltwater aquarium fish – Ranching. Spearheaded by Quality Marine in the US and Tropical Marine…
reefbuilders.com