Tank Raised Only Reef Setup?

[keripuff]

First off a big hearty hi to everyone here!!

I've read a couple books now and am starting to get a good idea of what i need to do if I want to do a reef system that would include anemones and symbiotic relationships between the organisms in my tank. The reason I sparked an interest in this is because of my love for nature and environmentalist attitude towards life.

So i was very disappointed to read that most anemones and other organisms are collected directly from the wild with obvious detremental effects to the natural coral reef systems. This is something I want to avoid at all possible costs. Who knows, maybe I have been fed untrue information but if it is true then I will have to make the decision to not use live coral, rocks, fish or anemones collected from the wild in my reef system

Is there any supplier that anyone knows of that specializes in selling tank raised organisms? Has anyone managed to "breed" (spawn, clone, whatever the heck it is they like to do) anemones or other invertebrates? How about live rock or coral? I know there are some spp. of fish, especially clownfish, that have been sucessfully tank raised, but are there others?

Thanks very much for any help you can give me.

And once again, hello!

[crvz]

Welcome to TRT!

For coral, it's not too hard to find aquacultured and maricultured corals, and surely there are a number of clubs in your area, where folks are often eager to share their coral frags (there are tons of websites to get frags, and check out www.liveaquaria.com, in their Diver's Den, for cultured coral).

In terms of fish, there are only a few species that are tank bred (like clowns, as you mention), but for the most part fish are wild caught. There has not been much success at raising some of the more popular fish, like tangs, triggers, etc.

For LR, you can easily get or make artificial rock, after which you only need a little LR (rubble from a local hobbyist) and some patience to turn it into all live rock.

Good luck on your reef setup, and kudos for being concerned about your impact! Of course, don't start thinking about the electricity required to run some of the equipment, or you may rethink the whole thing all over again...

[crvz]

I may have jumped the gun a little. To answer one of your questions a little more specifically, there is a lot of success of local propagation of coral. Anemones split in folks tank all the time, corals can be manually split with scissors, shears, etc., and clams are spawned in breeding facilities. You can easily find almost any invert you'd like to keep in your tank without taking from the wild.

Checkout the Desireable Invertabrate Breeding Society?? if you think that's something you'd like to participate in. They seem to be after your same passions...

[keripuff]

awesome!

thanks for the useful information. I realize that i won't be able to introduce things like anemones for quite some time, but in the meantime i kind of wanted to design my tank around having them there in the future.

Thanks again I definatley didn't want to give up on this hobby before i started it!