I'm obviously fully in support of Scott's statements here, and let me preface this by saying I'm a person who's attempted breeding several Synchiropus sp. (but failed to find ultimate success) and obviously written about them having worked with all four common species, as well as having kept some of the ORA CB mandarins.
I'm not a frequent poster on Reef2Reef by any stretch, but Scott nudged me as a friend to weigh in, and I'm always happy to oblidge Mr. Fellman...he's earned that respect from me!
I *think* what happened with the first ORA fish is that there is a difference between "eating prepared foods" vs. eating "ANY prepared foods". Having the "right" prepared food...specifically what the fish were feeding on, makes a big difference. And being little hummingbirds of the reef so to speak, it's entirely reasonable to think that stories of thin or undernourished ORA Mandarins may not actually be ORA's responsibility, but may very well have been the responsibility of the middleman, where these fish may have sat for days or weeks waiting to get to the hands of a hobbyist. Wild or captive bred, they can't survive long periods without food, and once any Mandarin starts down the path of starvation, it can be very difficult to reverse.
If people though about these CB mandarins more like CB seahorses, we'd probably still have good access to them. And in reality, that's part of the problem. As I wrote in CORAL Magazine, "Rethinking Dragonets" (
CORAL Magazine Table of Contents Nov/Dec 2011), these are simply not fish that thrive in high current systems as a general rule. Sure, if the tank produces endless amounts of pods...food that can "stay put on a rock" long enough for the mandarin to find it, then yes, a mandarin may cope. But pellets and nutramar ova (nevermind other various frozen foods and shrimps) don't sink to the bottom and stay there in a high energy reef tank that's often specifically designed to "sweep away" particulates in the first place. Dragonets need time to find their food. Because of this reality, dragonets do far better in low flow tanks that let food rest on the bottom long enough to be found and consumed. And absolutely no, Dragonets do not require abundant copepods if they are properly trained onto prepared foods...they simply require frequent feeding. ORA didn't rear all those baby mandarins in tanks full of rubble with massive amounts of copepods...those babies only had prepared foods they were offered, when it was offered.
Think about it - ORA didn't materialize their baby dragonets out of thin air...they HAD to use prepared foods in those bare bottom systems. We must put to bed the myth that the only way to be successful with Dragonets is simply endless copepods - far too many people blame their inability to keep dragonets on insufficient copepods, and I fear that makes it easier to personally justify the attempt and keeping, and the resultant failure, than when an aquarist takes the currently available information on prepared food feeding and makes a concientious, proactive effort to feed these fish as often as they need, with the proper prepared foods.
And yes, I think Scott you kinda skipped the point that the initial introductions were closer to $100...although some shops were closer to $50 right off the bat, and I think you also downplay the retail value of WC mandarins in shops (typically closer to $25-$35 here), but for aquarists to respond saying that the premium price was not deserved is definitely unwarranted in my opinion....here's why:
On the one hand, ORA works their butts off to do something at commercial scale that is still tremendously difficult. They asked a fair price for their work, right here in the good 'ole USA. They produced a product that, even in the worst case point of view or worst experiences, was "no worse" than the wild caught fish in terms of husbandry and care (and in reality and my own personal experience, was far better).
On the other hand, we can continue to harvest these fish at extremely cheap prices with mini spear guns (Mandarin Harvest Realities - Microcosm Aquarium Explorer) to the point at which there is scientific documentation of selective harvest pressure disrupting natural mating practices (http://www.biosch.hku.hk/ecology/porcupine/por23pdf/por23pdf.pdf), and documented local populations collapses (being no longer "commercially viable") due to overharvest (Early Development of the Mandarinfish, Synchiropus splendidus (Callionymidae), with notes on its Fishery and Potential for Culture - Springer). And this is NOT NEW NEWS...this has been documented since 2001, and yet nothing has really changed...with the loss of CB mandarins from ORA, we are right back where we started relying exclusively on wild harvested dragonets for the hobbyist.
Let that sink in - according to the information from Scott above, we failed to buy a captive bred fish at frankly a very affordable price, and now we no longer have that captive bred fish.
So really, it's ORA's responsibility to somehow price compete with the cheap wild caught fish? Or is up to all of us to resist the urge to buy solely on the "surface" price?
ACC - I understand your experience in the shop, with ongoing demand for the ORA CB Mandarins and no supply, but I think perhaps it's too narrow an experience to say it represents the totality of the market. It may in fact be that the $100 price point was the actual point at which production of Mandarins produced the same profit for the same investment that clowns did...and when the retail price point was tough to move volumes even at $50, there was imply too little profit there to justify the expenditure. But, to say "Only ORA knows why they stopped" is perhaps misleading, given that Scott very clearly spelled out, per his conversation with ORA, exactly why they dropped the program. They weren't able to sell them at a price that justified continuing the project - that's right up there in the opening post. "...
ultimately, retailers and consumers didn’t want to pay the much more expensive price for a captive-bred fish, and that they (ORA) did not see an economically viable way to keep producing them."
I suspect, and this is just my opinion, that aquarist are willing to spend colossal amounts of money for a tiny fleck of coral because they somehow believe that they can propagate that coral and later on recoup some or all of that investment. Meanwhile the propagation of fish is an entirely more difficult undertaking on every avenue...no profit potential for most any hobbyist, so no willingness to invest.
I just turn back to Scott's opening post and ask this point of view question - is it simply that we're only thinking of short term investment and not the long term ramifications of our purchases?
I realize of course, it's very hard at times to fork out extra when comparing what some may believe to be "apples to apples". I never could pay $100 for a refractometer at my LFS when the same exact make and model was $40 shipped to my door, no matter how much I valued my LFS and wanted to support them.
But we're not talking dry goods and market efficiency; we're talking about captive bred fish vs. wild caught fish, and while they may be the same species on the surface, anyone who's done their homework knows there are scores of ways in which captive-bred fish win out over wild caught fish (less disease, adaptability, familiarity with captive life, lower mortality, shorter supply chains, fewer feeding problems...the list goes on)
Scott cites Bob Fenner as saying vote with your pocketbook...I don't doubt Bob said that, and it's obviously a convergent notion (or one I absorbed from him) since I've been asking aquarists to vote with their wallets since at least 2007. A long time back now, I discussed how I feel the balance of supply should change in the marine aquarium fish trade -
Sustainable Collection vs. Captive Breeding ? Is There Room For Both? - in short, my view is that ultimately CB fish should be cheaper, but not because they are produced cheaply, but because wild fish should be far more expensive than they are currently. But even sustainably harvested wild caught marine fish, which WERE more expensive (I'm thinking PNG) failed to make the inroads necessary to remain economically viable.
All the same, The FW aquarium trade shows us this this change in who buys what most certainly can happen, and perhaps we are already headed in that direction, albeit very slowly, and probably not for the proactive consumer-driven reasons we'd like to see, but rather because of changes in the supply of ultra-cheap wild fish.
If there's one thing I've learned from sales - it's very easy to lower a price...it's very very hard to raise a price, unless consumers don't have a choice.
Scott, you mentioned the Assesors reared by ORA and the reason they work as CB fish is simple - they're not very available as WC fish, and when they are, they're expensive. So too with the various Red Sea Dottyback species. And so too with just about any non-native Seahorse species. This is the reality at hand...when wild caught fish are either too expensive, too rare, or simply aren't available, CB fish can often move in to fill the gap and they'll get a fair price. Why do we all buy captive-bred Black Ocellaris? Not because they're not swimming in the ocean, but rather because no collector wants to go back and get eaten by a saltwater crocodile. On the flipside, we have ONE collective shot at keeping Amphiprion mccullochi in the marine aquarium trade, because there are no collections of wild fish permitted. If insufficient people buy Mcc clownfish, regardless of price (not everyone can afford $300 at retail I understand), we will lose that species in the trade completely. Do YOU value the diversity of fish available to you? Then perhaps it's time to understand that buying wild caught fish isn't always the BEST choice. SOMETIMES it is (eg. good supply chains that created positive results), but SOMETIMES it is not.
Someone mentioned Banggai Cardinalfish - anyone who read our book knows that the fish remains listed on the IUCN Red List as and endangered species, and that the team went to areas where there should have been abundant populations of Banggais, and instead found far less than was expected. And yet you can still buy wild caught Banggais from some sources. I can say this as my personal opinion - at this time, no one should be buying and selling wild caught Banggai Cardinalfish...I don't care how much cheaper they are (nevermind that my local petco is purportedly selling Aquacultured Banggai Cardinalfish for now $9.99...was $15.99 not too long ago...I have to sell them at $15 wholesale just to make it worth my while). I'd encourage you to read Ret Talbot's half of the book to see precisely why I came to that conclusion (I used to think breeders should purchase wild caught Banggais for broodstock, and everyone else CB fish, but even that opinion has now changed). That "avoid WC" opinion may change, but to be blunt, that call to action has been around since 2007 if I'm not mistaken...why, 7 years later, with the fish still on the IUCN Red List, is it OK for folks to turn a blind eye or outright dismiss the science?
I think some people have a vested interest in the status quo, and are willing to ignore the obvious moral or ethical choices that I believe we're required to make in light of the information at hand. Then again, it's 2014 and we're still dealing with climate change as if it's not happening and dinosaurs roamed the earth only 5,000 years ago...so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that not everyone can see the obvious even when it's spelled out in front of them....
I hope ORA finds a way to revisit Synchiropus production...it was a shining beacon in their offerings and I'm very sad to hear they've been dropped.
