Apples, Oranges and Hot potatoes

Not all fish are created equally. Equality among fish species has been both a myth and an unscrupulous selling point as long as the fish business has been around. Fishes spawned in different oceans are born into habitats where specific water chemistries, conditions and pathogen mixes dictate their ability to adapt more or less easily to the captive environments commonly found in hobbyist aquaria. Like species that were collected from different environments may have very different survival rates in captivity. The presence of correct food sources is another matter altogether.

The vitality difference in similar species unfortunately can extend long past the moment of birth and beyond the habitat conditions in which that fish beat the odds and survived past the larval and juvenile stages. Much of difference is the manner in which certain aquarium fish are collected, transported to an export facility, housed and cared for prior to export, processed, packed, shipped, then acclimated, treated, nourished and housed at the point of wholesale distribution. With so many participants and variables in a fishes handling and care (or complete lack thereof) even fishes that were created equally, are very different by the time they are offered for sale by a wholesale distributor. Some collection/distribution chains do it better than others. Similar or same fish with different handling or husbandry care along the way and subsequently different chances of survival, these are the differences between apples and oranges.. A like scientific name is not a clear indicator as to the vitality and quality of a fish, nor is price.

In the best case scenarios, an exporter employs collectors and divers to harvest exactly what is needed to fill specific orders, and collecting takes place on an order by order basis. This collection happens carefully using the safest sustainable harvest techniques to eliminate impact on the habitat and minimize stress to the animal. These divers are thoroughly trained and held to a high standard by the exporter, and are well-rewarded for doing a good job. These fish, collected in close proximity to an exporter's doorstep are tanked in clean, efficient holding systems, quality controlled, treated if necessary and purged so as not to foul the water during further transit. Fish rejected for size or split fins are returned to the ocean to heal or grow. A responsible exporter holds the fish until they are ready for export, ranging in time from a few days to well over a week depending on species and depth collected. Imported fish are then acclimated to holding system water, again treated and quality controlled, held in a calming environment and fed before being made available for further resale. The above scenario is the Quality Marine protocol which we replicate with as many of our collecting stations and exporters as we can. There are other methods and practices, which work seemingly well on the short term, but the crispness, coloration, vitality and ultimate survivability just doesn't measure up as the fish moves along the chain of custody

Unfortunately in too many other cases a fish is simply treated like a hot potato, handed off as quickly as possible from one participant in the handling chain to another. The speed at which this hand-off takes place dictated by the individual's fear that the specimen is bound to perish should that handoff take too long. Fish are harvested by divers because they are there to be harvested, not necessarily because there is a particular order to fill or because that species is in demand. In the very worst case scenarios, these fish might be collected en masse with chemicals or extracted roughly from crude nets and crowded into community collecting buckets with other fishes that may not be their friends. They may be tossed about in coke-bottle holding cells in the surge zone waiting for a trip by boat to the next bigger island. These fish might be collected many days away from an export facility, rather than a few hours, and during that time in transit, the fish are hardly well cared for, and trade the comforts of good water quality, care and attention in clean aquariums for crowded buckets or the confines of a plastic bag. Rather than resting or being prepared for the long intercontinental journey that awaits the lucky ones, these lesser fish are being moved from panga to panga and then from the flatbed of one truck to another. These fish are cheaper by the dozen, and cheaper by the minute, if these fish aren't purchased by one exporter, they'll be offered to the next , until eventually they are all sold or included as bartering chips with the more desirable catch. If they make it to an aquarium, maybe they'll be crowded amongst their kin whose names are already on the weekly specials fax, hoping for some unsuspecting importers to give them a go. In same cases these fish may never be ordered at all, yet tossed into a half-full box on the shipping line and added to the bottom of an invoice. There's a good chance they'll end up in a transship box in which case they're a particularly long way off from seeing the light of an aquarium, many, many hours or days away. These fish are the hot potatoes, the fish that have to be shuffled on as quickly as possible. These might be the very same species as those that were nurtured and cared for during their ride from the reef to the retailer, but they sure have a different story to tell.

The ultimate success and longevity of the hobby depends on the success of the hobbyist. The more hobbyists that enter the hobby, buy fish, and have success keeping them, the better. The industry doesn't fare better by hobbyists losing fish and buying new ones to replace them, we fare far better by hobbyists keeping fish as pets all their lives. Just imagine if tank-raised ocellaris were as easy to keep as goldfish or bettas As industry develops, grows and makes advances in good, inexpensive filtration and integrated just add water and stir set-ups, the number of hobbyists and their success will swell. However, no matter how great the set-up the animal is kept in, if we continue to accept and sell compromised quality livestock, the chance of failure and lack of continued interest in the hobby inevitably increases.