Ret Talbot's Blog

Posted by Ret Talbot Jan 31, 2009

It’s been an interesting winter so far for the marine aquarium industry. Cold temperatures and Indo-Pacific storms really impacted the availability of animals throughout North America, but things seem to be picking up again. There is little doubt that the economy has impacted marine aquarium hobbyists buying patterns, although it’s hard to say how that will play out. Will people with marine aquaria no longer spend money on the hobby, as it is certainly a luxury for most? Or will hobbyists actually spend more on their tanks, as staying home and messing about with your tank is cheaper than going on vacation? Only time will tell.

If people do get in the buying mood, there are some great animals available right now. For example, I just interviewed the director of marine ornamental research at Blue Zoo Aquatics, a Southern California-based online retailer of marine fishes, corals and other invertebrates, and he showed me a few of the rare and one-of-a-kind animals they have in their Collector’s Choice store right now. I wrote an article about one of these animals—a rare white tesselata eel. Also commonly called the black-blotched moray, the black-spotted moray, the honeycomb moray, and, most commonly in North America, the laced or leopard moray, this Gymnothorax species is truly one of the cooler animals I have seen recently. If you’re so inclined, check out my Suite article on it (with pictures). Also there is a video of it here.

The casual marine aquarist often forgets the fact that upwards of 95% of marine aquarium animals are collected in the wild (the tesselata eel was from Bali, by the way), which is why, I suppose, there has been such a buzz recently about captive bred animals being the most responsible choice for the hobbyists. I do not subscribe to this view—it’s far more complex, I think—and I think the future of the industry will be dependent on a combination of sustainable wild collection and captive breeding. I do, however, believe that we need to somehow make more commercial captive breeding programs viable (economically, that is), and I recently touched on this in an article titled “Captive Bred Marine Aquarium Fishes” which is, in part, a response to Sarah Goodwin-Nguyen’s excellent Suite article on “eco-friendly” marine aquaria. Expect more on this topic soon—and much, much more…