Wild Caught vs Aquacultured When?

aresangel

Tim- 2020- Secretary, 2019 BRS President
BRS Member
Hi everyone,

I was thinking about the length of time it takes for one to say a coral is wild caught vs aquacultured.

For example, If I buy a colony of some acro. I frag that acro over and over again. Are the frags aquacultured? would my colony be deemed aquacultured after a while?
Or would it be something where the frags if they grew out and were fragged then they would be deemed aquacultured? As I am doing ocean acidification unit with my class this thought dawned on me and I was wondering when we as hobbyist and take the wild caught colonies and help preserve them for the future by aquaculturing them.

I would like to see some more information on this as it would be something I may want to incorporate into my lessons in the future, or once I get a full feel for the range in temperatures at my school start setting up a tank for the future. I know so far in the winter/fall months temperatures range from 84 in some rooms down to 60. So I am currently mapping out which rooms remain below 80. I need to also figure out temperature range for the summer to determine if I need a chiller.

Thanks for your comments and opinions.
 
Regardless where the mother colonies are from, if you frag the parts that grown under captive conditions, it is aquacultured.
In terms of sps. the difference is very big, wild sps primarily rely on planktons with photosynthesis as supplementary. Aquacultured sps primarily rely on photosynthesis.



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You are correct about preservation via aquaculture. But I will be cautious about ocean acidification regarding decline of reef building coral.



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In the graph of the past 100 years, ocean pH seems to getting lower, but carefully look at the actual data, pH seems to bounced back.
Also despite the general trend of lower pH, reef building coral calcification seems to increased or remain unchanged.
c25a0da7a198d54b75ff42df15561ad7.jpg



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Interesting. Now with Coral reefs being unaffected by ocean acidification shellfish based reefs or those who are mussel farmers have reported lower survival rate of their "crop" due to acidification. That could also be issues with overfishing/harvesting and natural wild population spawning going down as well. The issue that I would have with that graph is the change in pH is not described. In my class we discuss how CO2 combines with water to create carbonic acid which then breaks apart to leave free floating hydrogen ions and a bicarbonate behind. With CO2 being the cause of the change in the pH I wonder if that byproduct of the carbonic acid has a role to play in shell and skeletal dissolution when compared to other causes that decrease the pH from the past 100 years.
 
Regardless where the mother colonies are from, if you frag the parts that grown under captive conditions, it is aquacultured.
In terms of sps. the difference is very big, wild sps primarily rely on planktons with photosynthesis as supplementary. Aquacultured sps primarily rely on photosynthesis.

So wild colonies have a higher failure rate due to lack of energy is what you are saying. Is there a method that has been published or you have discovered that helps transition those acropora from a higher planktonic diet to a higher photosynthetic zooxanthellae derived diet. Or is it more of a buy many and have a few survive?

Does the same apply to anemones? any splits are aquacultured?
 
In the graph, the top is pH


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Looking at the graph, from 1980 to 2005, ocean pH raised from 7.95 to 8.15, that is a significant change in ocean pH. Quite contrary to ocean acidification.


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Regardless where the mother colonies are from, if you frag the parts that grown under captive conditions, it is aquacultured.
In terms of sps. the difference is very big, wild sps primarily rely on planktons with photosynthesis as supplementary. Aquacultured sps primarily rely on photosynthesis.

So wild colonies have a higher failure rate due to lack of energy is what you are saying. Is there a method that has been published or you have discovered that helps transition those acropora from a higher planktonic diet to a higher photosynthetic zooxanthellae derived diet. Or is it more of a buy many and have a few survive?

Does the same apply to anemones? any splits are aquacultured?

Lack of energy can be one of the reason. Adapt to captive water flow patterns and intensity is another.


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In terms of anemone, those ones that split and survive are mostly aquacultured anemone to begin with. Most wild ones just perished in captive.


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In regards to CO2 affect water pH, it is true for fresh water. But the ocean is a giant buffer.



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Regarding shell fish industry, they are at industrialized coastal water, those areas do exhibit more significant acidification. Besides CO2, pollution from industry and other human activity have greatly impacted the ocean water quality.

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Interesting counter points. But based on the same graph the overall pH has decreased in the trend using that 10 year average trendline.

I would love to expand the idea in class and have students analyze the data noaa puts out (Mona Loa atmospheric CO2 oceanic CO2 and pH) and that graphic from the coral core.




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This is a great idea, let students analyze data and come to their own conclusions.


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