Conservation as a mission.

[Michael Hull]

Hi all,

Like myself, I imagine many of you fell in love with reefkeeping because of some personal experiences with the ocean that made you want to keep a piece of it closer to home. For me, that has been a huge part of it, but the science of it and learning about how different organisms react and cohabitate, along with the water chemistry, have fascinated me as of late. My wife probably is starting to think I’m crazy with how much I roll out the test kits, but it’s really cool and my family seems to love it too. In any event, the reason for my posting is because I want to understand what people are doing to stay engaged or support the conservation community around keeping coral reefs living in the wild, or spreading awareness of overfishing, or whatever particular ocean saving cause you may resonate to.

For me, I want to learn what I can, and then apply my time towards something to try and create positive change. I’m just not sure how to do that, and curious to hear from you all. It’s easy to go to the store and buy coral, but I feel like I’m not doing my duty towards conservation if I’m not buying all aquacultured animals.
Thanks for reading. Thoughts welcome.

Mike from Coastal Virginia

 

[Peace River]

Hi all,

Like myself, I imagine many of you fell in love with reefkeeping because of some personal experiences with the ocean that made you want to keep a piece of it closer to home. For me, that has been a huge part of it, but the science of it and learning about how different organisms react and cohabitate, along with the water chemistry, have fascinated me as of late. My wife probably is starting to think I’m crazy with how much I roll out the test kits, but it’s really cool and my family seems to love it too. In any event, the reason for my posting is because I want to understand what people are doing to stay engaged or support the conservation community around keeping coral reefs living in the wild, or spreading awareness of overfishing, or whatever particular ocean saving cause you may resonate to.

For me, I want to learn what I can, and then apply my time towards something to try and create positive change. I’m just not sure how to do that, and curious to hear from you all. It’s easy to go to the store and buy coral, but I feel like I’m not doing my duty towards conservation if I’m not buying all aquacultured animals.
Thanks for reading. Thoughts welcome.

Mike from Coastal Virginia

Great topic and questions! There are many, many approaches to creating positive change in the world around you. I found a great deal of inspiration in this area at MACNA this year including from what organizations like Poma Labs, Rising Tide Conservation, Biota, UF TAL, and many others are doing with fish; with what @WWC, @TopShelfAquatics and so many others are doing with coral aquaculture farms; and with what vendors like @Reef Kinetics, @CoralVue, and many others are doing to supply innovative equipment to help us push the limits and be more creative. I encourage you to listen to Richard Ross' MACNA presentation to get a small sense of what kind of world changing is possible from hobbyists. While I am interested in coral, for many years my space in this hobby has been primarily focused on fish and I have had about 100 different species of fishes breed in my tanks. In addition to participating in a variety of conservation roles, maintaining tanks at a local nature center, and sharing my passion with others, I am continuing to work to breed more challenging fishes in order to add to the collective knowledge. I encourage you to be intentional, find your niche, and be a world changer. I wish you all the best in your conservation pursuits!

 

[Michael Hull]

Thanks for the thoughts! And for sharing some helpful links and videos.

One thing I wonder, at the local hobbyist level, what can we do to help keep coral reefs alive around the world? Or repropogate them. I know its an overly simplistic question with pH's rising and sea level temps rising, but, nonetheless, surely there are some "smart/hardy" corals being considered.

Anyone else have any thoughts?