SPS

[lonteoh]

Recently i did a most unethical thing a diver could have ever done. I took a small piece of Acros while diving in tioman. I managed to smuggled all the way back but when i reached home. I realised that the acros stinks like dead fish from the market and the sea water used to contain the acros turn brownish. Thinking that its dead, i juz dip the entire piece into fresh water and all the colours on the acros came out immediately leaving it totally white. I was wondering if i had made a wrong decision?

So, is acros smelly in nature? Could the acros still be still alive even though it has stained the seawater? Sworn to myself never to steal anything from the sea again

[woonming]

they arent that smelly but yes maybe abit

[Achilles Tang]

Acros are poor shippers.

They produced a lot of slime... and basically what happened was that it choked on its own slime. And the water that you put it in became devoid of oxygen and became toxic.

The smell is from dead tissue which sloughed off... its called RTN. Rapid Tissue Necrosis.

If you took a tiny frag from a colony, IMO, it's ok.

When you go fishing, it's amazing what you can pull up... I have thrown back lots of corals and gorgonians.

[BarraCudaTM]

I still remember dragging a whole 30cm wide wide seafan with the anchor

[lonteoh]

AT,

Rest assure, the frag i took back is so small that i dun think it will have any effect on the colonies in tioman (Smaller than my palm). another reason for the small size was because i was afraid to get caught at the custom.. Anyway i will never take any corals from the sea again. Dowan to kill another LS due to my ignorance.

[wedgee]

Hey guys, I dont usually talk abt this, and i dont mean to over-react, but i think we as serious hobbyists who are concerned (i hope!) abt the preservation of reefs worldwide, shld refrain from taking ANYTHING from the reefs when we go diving and stuff?

Imagine if one thousand pple think this when they goto the reefs every month: "Hmm i take one tiny piece wont hurt lah..." Soon, the reefs that took millions of years to form will be gone in just a few years!!! Imagine an SPS takes a year to grow just more than 12cm???

Our buying is very slowly killing the reef too actually, and I hope we can eliminate that slowly by going towards supporting CITES cleared stock (gonna cost, i know, but only way to go i guess), and hopefully having farms like the US do...

We've also been trying other ways like trading frags, teaching each other wat to do and wat not to do, as well as wat not to buy, in the hope that those LS that are sold in the LFS can survive and not be sacrificed unnecessarily...

So lets not waste our efforts ya?

PS: Sorry for hi-jacking this thread, but i just couldnt help speaking out...sorry if i offended anyone

[Tanzy]

I understand wedgee's concern but I would like to stress that it is perfectly fine to take frags from acroporiids because they are so abundant and grow so fast that they can withstand high collection. A hurricane or storm will break more acro than divers can collect in a year. Another reason to keep SPS instead of LPS.

[Achilles Tang]

Actually what Tanzy said is true.

What mother nature has taken thousands of years to create... she can destroy in a few minutes. And this has been happening for many many many years.

The main cause of reef destruction in order of magnitude is as follows:

1. Storms, typhoons, hurricanes, tidal waves - Mother Nature - massive destruction in a flash.

2. Global Warming - Mother Nature and Mankind - mass bleaching of corals.

3. Pollution of water by ships discharging wastes and chemicals at sea, chemical runoffs from land to sea from fertilizers, factory wastes, trash etc - Mankind - poisoning of the seas.

4. Destruction by land reclamation, overfishing, shipping activities eg. harbour works, ship anchors, water traffic, sandbed drilling, naval activities, trawler fishing - Mankind - destruction by human activities.

5. Illegal harvesting and fishing methods like dynamite fishing and use of cyanide - wrong practices - Mankind - greed.

6. Overfishing of certain species, allowing their prey to overrun the reefs due to no more predation eg. crown-of-thorns starfish - Mankind - greed and ignorance.

7. Lastly, careless diving protocols and practices - Mankind - carelessness.

8. Picking up corals while snorkelling, walking on tidal flats etc - Mankind - greed/ignorance?

I cannot say that the man who carefully picks up a frag or two is more guilty than the one who accidently breaks an entire colony by dropping an anchor on it, or is more guilty than one who throws trash into the drains, canals or at sea.

It is really, in all fairness, a lesser evil than other more destructive forces out there.

My 3 cents... as a reefer and a diver. I keep things in a matter of perspective.

[Sharky]

Oh, I have a confession to make. During my long vacation last year, I was extremely tempted to make a trip to Chek Jawa to see if I could collect several suitable items for a small invertebrate tank that I was planning. Well, I know the difficulties and risks involved. It was a only thought which I abandoned eventually. My first experience in keeping marine creatures dates back to 1984 with specimens caught from the Sentosa lagoon. I was a secondary school student at that time. The specimens, including filefish, seahorses, damsels, gobies and hermit crabs, were given to me by several workers who were cleaning up the lagoon.