What's the deal with ORA?

i cant think · Jul 25, 2022

fish farmer said:
CYANIDE COLLECTION.

That is one small issue fixed among 100s.
Even then, Cyanide collection is for the most part banned with only a couple areas still using it.

Chrisv. said:
Before leaving the fish farm, the farmed fish are (in theory) at peak health, well fed, prepared for shipping in a clean controlled facility, and then driven to an airport where they are shipped to the door of a customer.

When a fish is collected in the south pacific, it has an unknown parasite load. it's kept on a holding tank on a boat (not always a 1 day trip). Then it goes to an island holding facility. It is shipped to LA where it's pooled with other stressed hungry fish with unknown parasite loads, them to the LFS, then to me. There are so many opportunities along the way for fish to die.

I really don't think this is a numbers game. I think a higher percentage of wild fish die. Jay mentioned having done studies that demonstrate, if I'm not mistaken.

Again, there are issues that come from some areas. For example;
I cant get hold of CB animals except from clowns as over here in the UK we don’t have as much of the luxury as America does and when we do, the pricing is beyond what most would be willing to pay.
Another one is as I said before, fish that need feeding and gain their nutrients from mature sand beds or mature tanks don’t have that luxury in shipping. Or fish that need a sand bed to feel comfortable won’t have that and therefore in theory it’ll cause just as much harm as shipping a Wild Caught fish that hasn’t gone through Cyanide.

Tonycass12 · Jul 25, 2022

HBtank said:
That’s more a distinction without a difference.

Well there are some distinct differences like depending on where your farmed food fish come from they may be getting fed pig waste among other undesirable things(im looking at you tilapia!). Same goes for salmon farming that is detrimental to the health of the ecosystems around where it is farmed. At least in that case an argument can be made that a well managed sustainable fishery is better for the environment then farming but were starting to get off topic.

ISpeakForTheSeas · Jul 25, 2022

HBtank said:
That’s more a distinction without a difference.

Chrisv. said:
Agreed. One being prettier does not give it more of a right to live.

I have to agree too - in fact, I actually know a predatory starfish study where they used an Amphiprion (genus of clownfish) based food as the primary diet to feed the stars, so clownfish could also be raised for food (they're just too small for us humans to want to eat them - otherwise we probably would). Plus, some people in the freshwater community actually do keep tilapia as pets in their tanks.

i cant think said:
That is one small issue fixed among 100s.
Even then, Cyanide collection is for the most part banned with only a couple areas still using it.

Again, there are issues that come from some areas. For example;
I cant get hold of CB animals except from clowns as over here in the UK we don’t have as much of the luxury as America does and when we do, the pricing is beyond what most would be willing to pay.
Another one is as I said before, fish that need feeding and gain their nutrients from mature sand beds or mature tanks don’t have that luxury in shipping. Or fish that need a sand bed to feel comfortable won’t have that and therefore in theory it’ll cause just as much harm as shipping a Wild Caught fish that hasn’t gone through Cyanide.

Honestly, I view those as issues the industry will have to work through as it grows. The overall pricing of CB is pretty high right now while availability is pretty low, but I think we'll work through that as more people buy CB and as the CB process is refined. I expect we'll see some great improvements in this field in the coming decade or two that'll really help make the system more effective and more cost-effective. Similarly with the shipping issues, I think there are solutions for it (probably even some we could use right now), but they'd be expensive to test and implement.

i cant think · Jul 25, 2022

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
I have to agree too - in fact, I actually know a predatory starfish study where they used an Amphiprion (genus of clownfish) based food as the primary diet to feed the stars, so clownfish could also be raised for food (they're just too small for us humans to want to eat them - otherwise we probably would). Plus, some people in the freshwater community actually do keep tilapia as pets in their tanks.

Honestly, I view those as issues the industry will have to work through as it grows. The overall pricing of CB is pretty high right now while availability is pretty low, but I think we'll work through that as more people buy CB and as the CB process is refined. I expect we'll see some great improvements in this field in the coming decade or two that'll really help make the system more effective and more cost-effective. Similarly with the shipping issues, I think there are solutions for it (probably even some we could use right now), but they'd be expensive to test and implement.

Yeah, I agree that the hobby could adjust to these issues. Although it may be a nightmare to get to that stage it definitely isn’t impossible!
Maybe one of those ways is using a slow layer of sand in the bottom to try and calm them down.

fish farmer · Jul 25, 2022

i cant think said:
That is one small issue fixed among 100s.
Even then, Cyanide collection is for the most part banned with only a couple areas still using it.

Again, there are issues that come from some areas. For example;
I cant get hold of CB animals except from clowns as over here in the UK we don’t have as much of the luxury as America does and when we do, the pricing is beyond what most would be willing to pay.
Another one is as I said before, fish that need feeding and gain their nutrients from mature sand beds or mature tanks don’t have that luxury in shipping. Or fish that need a sand bed to feel comfortable won’t have that and therefore in theory it’ll cause just as much harm as shipping a Wild Caught fish that hasn’t gone through Cyanide.

I would really like that to be the case, but fairly recent articles still point to cyanide being used regularly....sure ban it all you want, enforcement and education is the issue.

Frontiers | Synergistic Effects of Ocean Warming and Cyanide Poisoning in an Ornamental Tropical Reef Fish

An array of anthropogenic pressures is affecting tropical ecosystems, posing major conservation challenges for scientists, stakeholders and populations. Ille...

www.frontiersin.org